Some People Aren't Meant to be Forgotten
by Jkoo7
Summary: The past is not always revealed. The gods' rule did not end with the fall of Kronos. A story forgotten in the pages of history. A boy trying to escape from it all but falls in deeper than he should have. A young girl trying to do what's right. A god trying to fix the mistakes he made. And the one who couldn't protect all of them. This is their story.
1. Protect Them

**Okay guys, I first want to get one thing straight.**

**If I start this, I might not finish it.**

**I kinda planned a sequel/prequel to Heroes Know When To Sacrifice in my head, not on paper, but such is the life of a writer.**

**And 'theworstisgoingtohappen' asked me to do this, so my conscience demanded I try.**

**So this is for you my friend.**

**Please don't hate me if I don't finish it.**

**But here I go.**

**.deep breath.**

**.exhales.**

**Let's do this.**

**Prequel**

**I Will Wait**

**Mount Orthys; The First Titan War**

**Third Person POV**

Lightning flashed in the sky, the stormcloud absorbing the final streaks of light. The cloud blotted out the sun, casting a shadow over the Titan's home, overshadowing a, not quite so alone, figure.

It was a woman, with blue, ancient eyes contradicting a young face. Her skin was as pale as a pearl, reflecting her beauty. She, herself, would not call her looks the prettiest, but it was enough to draw the attention of many in a group. Contrary to her light eyes and skin, her hair was midnight black. She wore a grey, silk dress, that would pool its lower ends around her feet when standing still, like a reverse halo if you will.

A white, marble structure stood on the top of the mountain with her, in the daytime as well as nighttime, it had a beautiful radiant glow. Mortals from all over came to see it, but it was not always to marvel upon the beauty of the temple. Sometimes, people would come to bring offerings to the deities.

This was not the case that day.

Asteri turned, looking at the girl chained to Oceanus' throne. The girl was pulling on the chains in a futile attempt to escape.

"That won't work, the chains are fastened onto the throne too tightly," Asteri noted. But the girl just glared at her, continuing to tug on her bindings. Asteri just sighed and looked at the looming cloud in the distance. But she couldn't resist her question from popping out of her mouth. "Was it worth it? Betraying your father to get what you want, just to stay here for nearly a year, chained to the throne of the father you betrayed?" she asked, turning back to the girl.

"To help stop a tyrant from destroying the world?" the girl pointed out. "Yes, and I would do it again, so don't try and convince me to apologize, because I don't regret it."

"Ah, but would Zeus be better?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

"Are you sure? What wrong has Lord Kronos done other than ensuring his reign? The beings of this world are at peace. If Gaea wished for her children free from The Pit, why hasn't she asked?"

"She _has_ asked." the child informed her, voice almost a growl. "But he turned his back to her, leaving his siblings to rot."

A look of surprise flashed on Asteri's face, but she said nothing. "His siblings are forces of destruction." she concluded, "But I'm sure if that's all my daughter wishes, I'm sure after this mess is cleaned up, Kronos will be willing to free them from their imprisonment."

"Your _daughter?" _the child asked, barely a whisper. Asteri could feel the young girl's eyes on her back, but Asteri could only look out into the raging storm on the beautiful earth, lightning setting fire to trees, hurricanes tearing apart homes, hills, trees, and the plants that had survived for the past year, prolonging the beginning of the inevitable battle between the two sides.

Until now, where the first gods had finally had the courage to face the titans.

Asteri ignored the question and asked her own. "Tell me, child," she turned to meet the younger woman in the eyes. "What do you see when you look at the rebels?"

"I don't see rebels at all." she corrected. "I see the liberators of the people of this world who cannot protect themselves. I see the kind, and the caring, the sympathetic, and the beings who rise above the oppressors of this world. I see a light to free the beings of this word from the likes of _you."_

"That's what you see is it?" she waited until the girl nodded. "Well, what I see are children who cannot see who is truly to blame. I see people who are willing to do _anything _to get what they want. I see the destruction they leave in their wake. I see the people they hurt. I see them not even giving any effort to even try to spare the innocents!" she cast her arm toward the now destroyed countryside and raised her eyebrows at the now speechless girl. "Don't you see the once beautiful fields now torn to shreds? Do you not hear the screams of pain and grief from the families your husband is destroying? I promise to you, that if you don't see that, and turn your hateful gaze at the beings that are just trying to do their best ruling an _entire planet, _and dare call _them _the villains?" she paused for breath. "I have nothing more to say to you." and with that, she walked toward the door.

But when she elegantly placed her pale hand on the door to open it, she heard the small voice behind her. "Zeus _will _be better than his father. And when you see that, I will accept your apology and convinced Zeus to go easy on your punishment. I swear it on Styx."

Asteri just sighed and looked back at her. "You are to be Zeus' queen yes?" the girl nodded. "It is prophesied that the rulers of the world will always be overthrown by their first queens' youngest. Zeus _is no exception_. Remember that, and be cautious with what he does with you once you will have a child. But I can only pity your fate, I see that you are a kind girl being manipulated by a bad man, there is nothing I can do to save you, my child, I am sorry." and with that, Asteri pushed open the door and into the hall.

She walked to the end of the hall to a door, footsteps echoing through the empty hallway. She opened the door and descended the stairs. And after going through one more doorway, she was deposited onto the terrace where the Titans, (minus three) were standing solemnly. Once they noticed her, one by one they bowed at the waist.

All but Kronos.

"I was surprised to hear that you refused to punish Rhea after her rebellious actions," Asteri said, walking up to him. He spared a glance at her before turning again to the incoming storm, and just for a moment, tears glistened in his eyes. And once he recognized her, the anger of the intruder in his time of grief evaporated and was replaced by shame.

"I was a fool to trust her." his voice was soft, but it did nothing to hide his anger "I should've listened to you, but I loved-" he paused as if considering those words. "I love her, and I'm sorry I wouldn't listen to your words of warning. But I felt I could confide in her whenever I wished, we played together as young titans, rebelling at night to sneak off to see the sacred golden tree and-" he shook his head. "I thought that would make her love me back as I love her."

"I didn't come here to taunt you." She assured him. He looked again at her, skeptical. "I'm sure she still loves you, is just a little bit, but she was not loyal enough as a queen should be to her king." she looked down, a feeling of shame washed over her, and spoke.

"I said I would stand down when she asked me to, that I would let her, have you. She was a sweet girl growing up, and I loved her like a daughter, so when she confronted me after our twelfth date, I could offer no resistance." she shook her head, overcome with the shame of her confession. "I said I would stand down," she repeated. "But I could not stop feeling the way I do for you, so I cursed her." the words tumbled out of her mouth.

"I cursed her that she would find only grief in her time with you, so you would grow apart, it was just a small thought, and didn't take more than a minute for me to regret it, but it was already done." she looked up at him, seeing the confusion in his eyes. "A single thought was more than enough for Gaea to set her plan into motion. I didn't see it at first, but I had grown to hate Rhea's and your relationship, but I could not hate either of you and for what you both have done to put a strain on your precious relationship, I cannot take the blame for, they were your choices alone. I didn't approve of you eating your infant children, but leading the people of this world and helping them with their everyday problems gave you such happiness when they came to _you _and-" her voice was trembling, but she looked him in the eye and said the thing that she had wanted to say as soon as she saw him for the first time. " if something made you happy, I would sooner fade than let it bring to you grief."

She waited for him to say something, but he just stared at her until his beautiful voice came through his mouth. "Thank you Asteri."

She tilted her head, confused. "For what?"

He smiled as if it were obvious. "For always supporting me, no matter what I decided." but the smile quickly faded as he looked again at the approaching storm. He pondered something for a moment, then seeming to come to a conclusion, looked at her, determination in his eyes, a far cry from his previous expression when she first spoke with him. "I have been a bad ruler-don't try to deny it,-I let the power get to my head and refused to accept the warning that I might have to give it up and you always had supported me in my decisions when I needed it, will you promise to support me in this one?"

"Yes." she promised without the slightest of hesitation.

A sad smile appeared on his face as if pitying her for not catching an obvious answer to a riddle. "Thank you," he said, taking her hand and looking her straight in the eyes, and her heart almost skipped a beat, but what he said next almost tore it in two. "And I know that this will be hard for you, but I want you to stay behind and leave the fighting to me and my brothers."

"_WHAT?"_ she hissed, tearing her hand away. "I am _not _a helpless girl! And if you think I'm going to stand behind doing _nothing _while you are in need of help you can go and stick that idea-"

"You will _not _be doing nothing," he assured her, grabbing hold of both of her hands this time, and turning his gaze at his brothers. '_Minus three,'_ she thought, '_Prometheus and Epimetheus were protecting the mortals, good, the innocents should not be harmed.' _But then she thought back to the chained girl and her father. '_I would call Oceanus a coward, but we're all scared.' _

Kronos sighed, "My brothers have always been loyal to me, and their children follow my example-well, _most of them _at least. They have promised to support me against the gods that decide the future, and I don't know what else I can do to protect them but having you watch out for them." he brought her hands up to his mouth, placing a kiss on them, looking her in the eyes with such a pleading and begging look, she had to tear her gaze away.

"What if something happens to you and your brothers? How will I live with the guilt that I could've stopped it?" she protested, but he could only shake his head.

"Can't you see? You can't stop this. If I win, I will do everything I can to get rid of my children or make them my allies, therefore cutting off the events the prophecy spoke of. The cursed Fates won't allow it," he chuckled. "You might even say that they have fate on their side, but I think that would be pushing it."

"You just expect me to be able to stand against the new king of the cosmos, protecting his likely only liabilities to rule until you return? _Shining Stars_ Kronos, that's near impossible! You _know _I won't be able to hold off for long. We could hide, but with the entire world against us? We wouldn't last a century. And if we fought against them?" she shook her head, "Kronos, I'm powerful-as a primordial must be- but I am _not _indestructible. I won't even be able to call upon my brother!"

"Then what would you advise? Lose here-you _know_ we will- and have my nieces and nephews subject the so-called mercy of my children?" his voice was begging, which surprised her, it wasn't every day the Lord of the Universe called upon you for help, but then again, it wasn't every day that a group of rebels came marching toward your doorstep, promising to destroy all who were loyal to you.

"If you won't stand a chance how long would they have without your help? And you won't be alone, they aren't as weak as you would think, they can fight with you if the need arises, but you're going to need a head start on them. If you leave now, you can find a place to hide for a while, we'll stall for you here as long as we can, we might even last for a few years if we're lucky, but you're going to need to hurry." he grinned, "I hope I don't have to remind you that you promised to support me on this."

She grinned back, but it was smaller, with less enthusiasm and more of defeat with her pitiful attempts to resist the idea, but it was a smile nonetheless. "Of course not, and it's the best idea I can think of so, of course, I'm up for it but...are you sure about this? I could really-"

"Yes," he said, interrupting her final attempt of changing his mind. He turned to the assembly of the titans and their wives waiting patiently for him. "I truly hope this is not the last time I see you're grumpy faces-" he was interrupted with a bark of laughter from Atlas in the back of the crowd but was quickly hushed by his wives, Pleione, Tethys, and Hesperis.

"But I would like to say how grateful I am for your loyalty and support ruling this wonderful planet. And I know that I'm asking too much of you by again coming with me to battle my own family, likely leaving your own for perhaps the last time, but I will not leave them to perhaps the literal wolves without some sort of plan for their protection." he turned his head to Asteri, a proud smile on his face as if unveiling a curtain to reveal the answer to everything. "Asteri will protect your children to the best of her abilities, but she will not last long. If we lose, we will have to return as fast as possible, to return to our families, and wipe this scourge that my wife has placed upon this land to shreds." Kronos finished and Iapetus let out a bellow of victory as if they had already won, and soon, the halls rang with the sound of the war cries of the pantheon.

The next fifteen minutes after the speech was filled with the parents of her charges hugging their children goodbye and the brave ones that were going to fight the ones to blame for this tragedy. One of the voices to stand out (because of the volume of it) was Atlas lecturing one of his daughters to come with my charges. What was her name? Oh, right, Calypso.

"But I don't want to leave you!" the child screamed as she clung to her father. "Give me a sword, let me fight!" she begged as her half-siblings, with their own tears in their eyes, tried in vain to pull her away from Atlas' leg. The girl was succeeding in her attempt to cling to him for as long as possible but failed as her mother, Tethys, with a sad smile, helped with the excavation. They (with the help of her two-step-mothers) had to drag her, screaming, kicking, and crying, away from the titan. And Atlas could only watch with a reassuring smile and wave at his wives and children that everything was going to be fine.

But one of the strongest titans could only keep it up for so long.

Soon, his eyes started to water and he bit his lip, keeping a sob from escaping out. He turned away to a weapons stand before the tears could fall and picked up a sword, closely examining it to no doubt distract him from his grief.

She switched her focus again to the young Calypso, who was now being hugged by her mother, who was speaking soothing words to comfort her daughter, tracing circles on the back of the young girl's back.

Similar events to Atlas' family was happening all around the room. Mothers receiving hugs from their husbands while cousins and half-siblings were getting together in groups, hugging each other to ensure their might-be last moments together would be as long as they possibly could. Let it be second, first, or third generations of titans. There were many screaming children being dragged away from their parents by their cousins, heartbroken by what was happening to their lives.

And Asteri was supposed to protect them all.

The gravity of the system hit her like a boulder.

'_I have to protect all of them.' _she almost staggered under the huge burden of responsibility Kronos had entrusted with her. '_I have to protect ALL of them.' _This time, the thought was more of a call for her to look at the formed group of crying children that she was going to take with her on her journey. And look she did.

The group consisted of no less than twenty children, which was surprising, there should have been more, since there were so many of the titans' children, but she soon discovered that the rest of them had taken up swords. The oldest of her charges had taken on the responsibility of caring for the youngest of the children. They were offering soothing words of comfort to them and fifteen of them had started a game of 'Name Impulse,' both to help the kids distract themselves from what was happening and to help the participants learn the names of the people they were likely to be spending the next few years together.

"Dmia!" her younger brother, Ophion, called out and the girl in question ducked.

"Perses!" Lenantos called out a millisecond before Perses shouted:

"Lenantos!" but realized that he lost and sat down.

Lenantos pondered what to do next, and finally called out abruptly: "Potamoi!" and a similar event was replayed, except this time, it was Pallas and Asteria who competed, the latter winning and the former being forced to sit. And the game continued until only two boys, Althea, daughter of Iapetus, Flora, daughter of Oceanus, and Dirik, son of Krios, were left, and Flora was pondering on who she wished to battle. Then, abruptly, she sat down herself, and it took the finalists a few precious moments on what to do next.

Dirik then shouted: "Althea! Flora!" and, just like that, he won.

And uproar of applause or objection sounded throughout the group. (the leader of the latter being Althea herself) And Asteri couldn't stop chuckles from escaping her lips. It was so unexpected, finding happiness in this dark time, but she could see why the children might need it. Being able to laugh, when you are afraid, can turn even the scariest of times into something to have fun with. She would have to remember that later, it could come in handy in the future.

She started to walk to the group, who were now in the process of starting the next game with the entirety of her charges. She received a flash of inspiration and conjured up a piece of paper and quill. As the children went around, saying their names and parentage, she took advantage of this opportunity and wrote as quick as she could and jotted down as much as she could of the children.

**( italics mean I made them up. -Jkoo7)**

**16 girls and 11 boys**

**Older kids:**

Hyades (daughter of Atlas)/

Dmia (daughter of Oceanus)/

Pallas (son of Krios)/

Asteria (daughter of Koios)/

_Flora (daughter of Oceanus. Name meaning plants and animals)/_

_Agnetha (daughter of Koios. Name meaning good-hearted)/_

_Ariana (daughter of __Epimetheus__. Name meaning woman of peace)/_

_Dirk (Son of Krios. Name meaning powerful ruler.)/_

**Middle kids:**

Hesperides (daughter of Atlas)/

Pleiades (daughter of Atlas)/

Hyades (daughter of Atlas)/

Zoë Nightshade (daughter of Atlas)/

Hyas (son of Atlas)/

Perses(son of Krios)/

Ophion (son of Oceanus)/

Astraeus (son of Krios)/

_Soron (son of Atlas)/_

_Aileen (daughter of Hyperion. Name meaning torch of light)/_

_Alessa (daughter of Prometheus. Name meaning protector of humanity)/_

**Younger Kids:**

Lenantos (son of Koios)/

Potamoi (son of Oceanus)/

Maera (daughter of Atlas)/

Calypso (daughter of Atlas)/

_Solar (son of Hyperion)/_

_Agape (daughter of Krois. Name meaning love and affection)/_

_Althea (daughter of Iapetus. Name meaning one who heals)/_

_Pasha (son of Oceanus. Name meaning small and humble)/_

_Dawid (son of Kois. Name meaning Adored)/_

_There, _she thought as she wiggled her fingers, getting the ache of writing so much away. _That should help keep track of them all. _She then watched intently on the outcome of the game, and Hesperides, a daughter of Atlas won. Her name was so hard and long to pronounce, that even if her opponent started before her, she was able to win because of her quick tongue.

"I suppose that you should be going soon." a familiar voice sounded behind her and she turned to meet Kronos standing alone, with no wife or children to say farewell to.

"I suppose so," she said, refusing to cry in front of him and instead placed a forced smile on her face. "But, it will not be so that we will not meet again, I can feel it," she assured him, but it might have been for both of them, as she also needed the reassurance.

Kronos looked down at his feet, sensing the lie of her statement, but only said seven words before walking away from her. "You would have made a wonderful queen."

The words were so unexpected, that she stood stock-still for a few moments, just looking at the fleeing figure until she could bear it no longer and turned back to the group of children who were conversing about what adventures they will have soon. Asteri sighed and whistled loudly to gain their attention. All heads turned toward her and she almost started to cry with the looks of hope they sent at her. But she just smiled back at them and spoke.

"I know that many of you might think that you won't be able to see your parents again," she stated, knowing she was right when most of them looked down at their feet. "But I promise you that you will see them again, and I intend to keep that promise if it's the last thing I do." The atmosphere again turned solemn, and she knew that if it stayed that way, it was going to be even harder on them. "But let's not be so down about this guys, I know a secret exit out of Mount Orthys that I think you'll all like." and she began to walk out the door. And she was afraid that they wouldn't follow her, but soon after a moment of confusion, footsteps sounded behind her.

She led them out of the door, and the children were a bit hesitant to leave their families so abruptly, but they knew that they shouldn't fall behind if they wanted to see the mysterious exit she told them about.

She led them through the palace, door after door, stair by stair until they arrived in an empty hallway.

"There is nothing here," a small voice sounded behind her and she turned to find Hesperides, a daughter of Atlas, speaking. "Believe me, my siblings and I found it weird that there would be an empty hallway in Mount Orthys, so we looked all over it to find some sort of button to activate a passage or some sort of secret, but we couldn't find any."

"We did find a black panel with a hole in it on the wall," Zoe corrected her, walking toward a brick in the wall. She brushed over it and there was, indeed, a black panel on it. "But we couldn't find out how it worked. We tried blood samples, fingerprints, words, we even tried to take a sled-hammer to it, nothing worked."

Asteri had already taken out her list and made sure that all of the children were accounted for and smiled at the children. "Very smart," she complimented them, walking over, "But did you take a knife to it?" and then abruptly pulled out a black knife and drove it into the slot.

The children let out a yelp of alarm and jumped back. The brick wall changed into a sparkling black, just like the knife that was pulled from it. Asteri just laughed at them, shouted: "Race ya!" and ran into the black wall.

It felt like she was trapped in black sand for a moment before she was tossed into a white room. Upon further inspection, the room was just filled with a snow-like substance covering the floor. And Asteri flew through the air, landing in the pile of snow like a rock being dropped in water. When she landed, it wasn't cold at all and was the softest, fluffiest thing she had ever felt, only she moved through it like it was water. A quite interesting sensation really. All around her, she could see the creatures that lived in the substance, beautiful creatures of her own invention that she liked to call, twutoles.

They were basically turtles, but with either bat or dove wings and could walk on land as well as tortoises. They had retractable claws made of diamonds to dig their burrows. A few, when they saw her, swam up and she gently stroked their shells. To her right, she saw a family of them eating from the strange berry bushes that grew in the substance. It made her think very hard on what to give them to eat, and she decided to settle on this. Bushes that would give the consumers near-immortality, would regrow when eaten and would consist of every fruit you could think of. She was quite fond of her creations and didn't wish them to starve.

It only took a moment for her to sink to the bottom of the substance and she used all of her strength to swim to the surface. The substance couldn't have been more than twenty feet deep and when her head popped up out of it to take a breath, she saw screaming children, holding hands, flying toward her. She was able to move away just in time as the long line of children, oldest to youngest, each fell into the substance.

It took her a few seconds to realize how dangerous of a situation she put them in. If they weren't used to the substance, and wouldn't know how it worked, then they might drown! Quickly, she took a deep breath and dove down to see the children surrounded in an air bubble held together buy Potamoi, Ophion, Flora, Pasha, and Dmia. And overcome with relief, she entered into the bubble.

"Thank goodness! I thought you all might drown." she expressed after taking a breath of air.

"With us around? Never!" Potamoi promised proudly, walking around the outskirts of the bubble with Pasha and watching the twutoles curiously swim around the bubble, admiring the new arrivals inside.

"What is this place?" Calypso asked as the rest of the group had become speechless at the wonders they were beholding and Asteri felt a rush of pride concerning her 'little project.'

"I actually haven't named it yet," she confessed, suddenly extremely self-conscious. "I couldn't find the right name for it. None of them ever sounded right, so I just called it: 'my project.' The substance around us, well, I call: 'the substance.' The plants that grow here I call 'the berry bushes.' And these I named twutoles."

"Well, at least you have a set name for _one _of them." Perses, a son of Krios mentioned, causing the rest of them to laugh, snapping them out of their trance and allowing them to join Potamoi and Pasha in their examination of the twutoles until one of the twutoles, probably the dare-devil of the species, even started to charge toward the bubble and, before they could do anything, plopped inside.

It was a yellow and orange twutole, with black spots on his shell and black enthralls on his wings. They were bat wings, and with his expression, they probably should have bowed down instead of laugh, but they couldn't help it! He looked like swiss cheese!

All except Pasha.

He smiled and walked over to the twutole, who was looking confused at the people laughing, probably trying to figure out if he looked intimidating enough, he could save his dignity, but it just made them laugh harder.

"Hey, don't worry, I won't hurt you," he assured the twutole, walking toward it and getting on his knees when he was about six feet away. When he got close enough to touch its face, the twutole recoiled its head with an indignant look on its face.

"Hey! That's not very nice, after all, you're the one that came in here. Get over here and let me pet you!" Pasha demanded, placing his hands on his hips. Asteri didn't know if the cheese twutole could understand it, but it understood the tone of voice and timidly crept toward the child. It sat down, right on Pasha's lap and braced itself to be pet. It looked a bit awkward for the creature, as it was almost double the child's size, but Pasha didn't seem to mind.

"There, this isn't so bad right?" Pasha mentioned as he stroked the twutole's shell. And the twutole to its credit didn't resist. It actually seemed to be enjoying itself.

"Cheesy Mic-Boi," Pasha said suddenly.

"What?" Agape asked.

"Cheesy Mic-Boi, or Cheesy for short." he clarified, looking up at us and shrugging his shoulders. "What? He has to have a name."

We recovered from our original confusion and smiled at the pair. "Huh, the name's sort of cheesy, don't you think?" Pleiades said, grinning from ear to ear.

We roared with laughter as Pleiades' face turned red as lava and tried to _apollo_gize between the giggles coming out of her from her own embarrassment on how sorry she was for telling such a cheesy joke which just made us laugh harder. After about half a minute, she realized the typo in her words and turned even redder in the face.

"We're going to die of laughter if Cheesy sticks around Pasha," Hyades told him when she was able to calm down after a while.

"But just look at him!" Agnetha explained, rushing over to the pair and holding Cheesy's head in her hands. "HE'S SO CUTE! We can keep him right?" she looked at Asteri, asking for permission, but before she could say anything, Astraeus butted in.

"Of course we can't!" he claimed. "This is his home! We aren't going to take him across the world, trying to hide from the gods, that wouldn't be fair to him!"

"And who says we're not going to stay here?" Hyas challenged, gesturing all around them. "We got food, we got air, no one would even know where this place is! It's perfect!"

"The entrance is in the place where the gods are sure to search!" Soron agued. "They might see the panel, open it, and we'll have no way of defense! We don't even have any weapons!"

"We won't be able to even stay here for long. The children of Oceanus are sure to falter on the air bubble at one point, and I can't swim!" Aileen complained.

"HEY! Don't count us out just yet! We might not be able to hold out for long, but if we really try, we can make all of us able to breathe underwater in a couple of days or so." Flora promised.

"And if it doesn't work? We'll drown!" Solar stated.

"Guys-" Ariana started.

"Well, if you learned how to swim, you'd be fine!" Dawid growled.

"Well, we're sorry we never thought we'd have to go in the water!" Aileen shouted. "Our father-"

"-was the god of the sun. WE KNOW!" Maera interrupted. "But your father isn't here right now, so you shouldn't need to follow his rules anymore."

"Guys-" Ariana tried again.

"WELL, SOME OF US DIDN'T GET TO SAY GOODBYE!" Alessa shouted, gaining everyone's attention. "Don't you all know how lucky you are to be able to do that? I didn't even get to see my parents before coming with you all." she started to cry and put her head in her hands. "I don't even know if I'll see them again."

"You're not the only one who didn't get to say goodbye to a parent!" Potamoi shouted back at her. "Our father _abandoned _the rest of the titans. He abandoned _us._ And not even to protect someone! He was a _coward._"

"Guys-" Ariana began again.

"Potamoi!" Flora scolded him. "Our father-"

"-abandoned us!" Potamoi insisted, more earnestly this time. "He abandoned you, me, Dmia, Ophion, Pasha, Kronos, all his brothers, all his nieces, all his nephews, _all of them_."

"Guys."

"Our father cares about us!" Flora argued back. "He's just- he just… needed a break from it all."

"He went to _Rhea._" Potamoi spat. "What else would he do there but cower from everything while his children were likely to be sent into the abyss?"

"GUYS!" Ariana shouted, finally earning the group's attention. "We can't fight like this."

"Like what?" Zoe implored when she wouldn't continue.

"I mean: We only have each other now. We can't afford to hold grudges against each other. If we are going to avoid the gods and survive, we have to work together."

No one else knew what to say to that and Asteri realized that she had just stood there, watching, as her charges could have potentially split in two. A cold feeling washed over Asteri as she realized Ariana single-handedly prevented a civil war while Asteri, the one who was supposed to protect them, had not even attempted to stop the arguing.

Flora sighed, took a deep breath, and looked back at Potamoi. "I'm sorry for yelling, that wasn't the best way to handle the situation."

"I won't apologize for being right." Potamoi countered. "But… I can see how you might think differently." Flora sighed at this but didn't object as she turned to Solar and Aileen.

"I would be happy to teach you how to swim if you want."

The two shared a look and smiled at her. "That would be great, thanks, Flora," Solar noted. "And I won't even mind if we end up staying here."

"Me neither." Astraeus and Soron said at the same time. They shared a confused look between the two of them and chuckled at the event.

Potamoi walked over to where Alessa was sitting on a large rock and sat down next to her. "I'm sorry about before, it's really hard not being able to say goodbye to someone."

Alessa nodded. "They said that I should stay with Ariana and left." she looked at her cousin. "How are you not… You know…" she left the question hanging in the air as Ariana considered it.

"My mother said that if you can't fix something, you just have to live with it," Ariana stated after a few seconds. "I couldn't help the rest of our family fight the gods, so… I guess I need to help keep you all from fighting each other."

The group pondered over this until Calypso's tiny voice sounded out: "Hey guys? Pasha and Agnetha are gone."

**.Cue Percy Jackson's maniacal laughter.**

**Ok, but really, I was spending WAY too much time on this chapter and right now I just want to get on with this.**

**As always, I'll update as fast as I can and Keep smiling.**

**-jkoo7**


	2. We'll Always be Friends

**Ok, this chapter was promised in the previous story, so I hope you all like it.**

**Third POV**

**CA**

**You won't Hold me Back this time.**

"Common! We're almost there!" Horace promised, taking his friend's hands and pulling them up the hill. "We'll be free! We just need to reach the Wolf House and then everything will be better." he was a small child, with a bright smile and green eyes that sparkled. His hair was light brown, though it could have been mistaken for a blond color. He wore brown overalls over his white shirt and had brown sneakers.

"The Wolf House will still be there." Lucky chuckled, pulling back in a futile attempt at resisting Horace's pulling.

"Hey!" Grey pulled his hand free of Horace and rubbed his wrist. "That hurts, stop it. There's no hurry to get there."

"Ya, I know that," Horace informed them. "But there is sure to be a bunch of monsters around here, so I want to get there before we're attacked."

"Oh, right," Lucky said, quickening her pace to stay with Horace but soon she had to pull her own hand free as well.

"How long is this trail?" Horace asked, quickening his pace, not waiting for the others to catch up with him.

"Dad said that it was around one and a half miles." Lucky stumbled while trying to keep up with Horace.

"Then we need to hurry, it'll be dark soon and then it'll be too dark to see the trail." Grey finally had enough and grabbed Horace's hand, stopping him from continuing further. "Can you slow down for us a bit bud?"

Horace had an angry look on his face for a second, but smiled and promised "Sure guys, sorry."

They walked together in silence for thirty minutes until Grey spoke. "What should we do when we meet with Lupa? Should we bow? I've never met a talking wolf pack before."

"No, we stand our ground." Horace stated. "Wolves kill the weak to make way for the strong. We can't show any signs of weakness. If we make a mistake and she corrects us, we have to agree, but also find a way to make it seem like we're doing her a favor."

"You've thought about this a lot haven't you?" Lucky noted, sounding impressed.

"Of course, this is probably our only shot at surviving with monsters on our tail our entire lives. I don't want us to mess it up."

"How to be respectful and confident at the same time?" Grey asked himself. "I think we should just nod and do what she says right away. Then our words wouldn't be able to mess us up."

Horace nodded, "I agree, however, we also have to plan how to ask for Lupa's help. I think we should tell her that we've come for information on how to reach New Rome, it's not a lie, and she will explain her conditions, we can't object to her on them, she's our ticket in."

"What if she won't take us?" Lucky asked.

"Then we'll have to go across the country to that other place." Horace tapped his chin. "What was it called? Camp… Something or other."

"Camp Half Blood." Grey reminded him, a bit annoyed at the name. Then a thought came to him. "Guys? I'm not a 'half blood,' do you think I'll be able to live there?"

"Of course you will." Lucky promised him, but Horace just stayed silent until he said:

"All the more reason to get in New Rome. Then we don't have to worry about if Camp- if the camp will take you in. Mom said that demigods could bring in their boyfriends and girlfriends into New Rome right? And you two are technically dating, so it shouldn't be a problem if you guys were a couple officially."

Lucky and Grey were not-so-subtly avoiding eye-contact with each other.

Horace cleared his throat, eager to change the subject. "So… Um, nice day this is."

"Ya, really pretty." Grey agreed.

"Yup." Lucky popped the 'p,' and Horace couldn't help but notice that the two were still avoiding eye contact.

"Ummm…" Horace was looking around for something to spark a discussion. _There. _"The chipmunks and squirrels look really nice."

"Yup." Grey agreed.

"Ya." Lucky mused.

Horace was a bit disappointed how he was the only one trying to start a discussion, so he shouted: "HYDRA!"

The reaction was immediate.

Grey took out his sword from its sheath and Lucky pulled out her hair-pin, turning it into a silver bow.

"Where?" Grey asked.

"What's a hydra?" Lucky asked at the same time.

"You don't see it?" Horace grinned. "It's impossible to not in the Void of Awkwardness you guys are creating."

Lucky and Grey looked at each other, confused. "What?" they both asked.

Horace raised his eye-brow. "Guys come ON. Lupa is going to be testing us non-stop and you guys don't want to joke around when we can."

"Didn't you want to be all serious before?" Lucky noted.

"Ya, but wolves are pretty hard-core. I was just practicing."

"I guess that makes sense." Grey said.

Horace sighed, then had a flash of inspiration. "Race you to that tree!" He shouted as he raced ahead.

"Hey!" Lucky called after him. "That's not fair!"

"Wait up!" Grey rushed after him.

Horace was huffing and puffing when he reached the 'finish line.' Grey and Lucky weren't that far behind, but Lucky was passing Grey at the moment and Horace needed to cheer on his dude.

"DON'T BE BEAT BY A GIRL G-MAN!"Horace shouted. "SHE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!"his cheering seemed to give Grey a burst of energy and Grey rushed over the finish line.

"G-man?" Grey asked, collapsing on the ground to catch his breath. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Horace shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, just came to me in the moment."

"I like it." Grey informed him. "So you better start calling me by that more often."

Horace grinned, "Will do bud."

"Cheaters!" Lucky accused when she plopped down and leaned on the tree. "No Fair! Boys against girls isn't equal!"

"Sorry, guess luck wasn't on your side this time my friend." Grey winked at Horace as Lucky glared at him.

"Oh you are so dead." she warned, standing up and lunging at Horace's neck.

"Run G-man run!" Horace shouted as Lucky chased Grey up the path. But he could only laugh at the sight of the two becoming smaller as they were getting farther ahead of him. He realized that he'd be left behind and chased after their fleeing figures.

When he finally caught up with them, they were sitting on a log, out of breath and looking down-right exhausted.

"Worried we would have to wait an hour for you dude." Grey informed him.

"You walk so slow for the fastest runner here." Lucky noted.

"Eh, I like saving energy when I can."

"You do enough of that with the food you shove down your mouth." Lucky chuckled, but turned serious as she stood up and whispered in his ear: "We saw the wolf house just in time, we wanted to wait for you before we went ahead though, so we didn't approach, but the wolves might get suspicious if we just stay here without doing anything. Do you want to go now, or do you have any more last-minute plans we need to finish before? This might be your last chance."

Horace paused, a worried look on his face as he tried to find what he might have missed. Funny thing with brains? When you need to find something in them the most, they never cooperate.

"I… I think that's it." he looked up at them. "I think we have everything, but… I feel like I'm missing something." his face turned confused. "That doesn't make any sense."

But his friends just laughed and came in for a group hug. "For you, it makes perfect sense." Grey noted, causing them all to laugh.

Lucky wiped away a tear. "I don't know why I'm sad. I should be happy." She looked into Grey's eyes. "This is it, we're in the home stretch, but…" she shook her head. "I feel like this is going to be the last time we're together."

"But… we'll always be friends right?" Horace asked them.

Grey looked between his two friends, he smiled, nodded his head at Horace, and said: "Forever. It's always been us, and it will forever be us. You guys mean the world to me, and I'll never let it fall apart."

Lucky laughed. "Now you've gotta go and be all sentimental on us, this is supposed to be happy." she grabbed both of their hands, Grey's in her right and Horace's in her left, and pulled them toward the Wolf House. "Now common, we got a wolf goddess to intimidate."

**Ha, don't worry, I'll update soon, but I just thought I'll leave you with a cliff-hanger to think about.**

**Sorry for giving you such a short chapter, but I wanted to give my brain time to think about what will happen on the god's side of the scale.**

**Someone asked me who Asteri is, and she's an original character, who has a very complicated back story that I can't just tell you, sorry.**


	3. Twutoles are smart

Third POV

Sea of white (the name is a work in progress)

Characters of Asteri's group.

**( italics mean I made them up. -Jkoo7)**

**16 girls and 11 boys**

**Older kids:**

Hyades (daughter of Atlas)/

Dmia (daughter of Oceanus)/

Pallas (son of Krios)/

Asteria (daughter of Koios)/

_Flora (daughter of Oceanus. Name meaning plants and animals)/_

_Agnetha (daughter of Koios. Name meaning good-hearted)/_

_Ariana (daughter of __Epimetheus__. Name meaning woman of peace)/_

_Dirk (Son of Krios. Name meaning powerful ruler.)/_

**Middle kids:**

Hesperides (daughter of Atlas)/

Pleiades (daughter of Atlas)/

Zoë Nightshade (daughter of Atlas)/

Hyas (son of Atlas)/

Perses(son of Krios)/

Ophion (son of Oceanus)/

Astraeus (son of Krios)/

_Soron (son of Atlas)/_

_Aileen (daughter of Hyperion. Name meaning torch of light)/_

_Alessa (daughter of Prometheus. Name meaning protector of humanity)/_

**Younger Kids:**

Lenantos (son of Koios)/

Potamoi (son of Oceanus)/

Maera (daughter of Atlas)/

Calypso (daughter of Atlas)/

_Solar (son of Hyperion)/_

_Agape (daughter of Krois. Name meaning love and affection)/_

_Althea (daughter of Iapetus. Name meaning one who heals)/_

_Pasha (son of Oceanus. Name meaning small and humble)/_

_Dawid (son of Kois. Name meaning Adored)/_

"Where are they?" Asteri demanded, looking around the bubble.

"I don't know! I just looked over to see how Cheesy was doing, and POOF!" Calypso popped her fists out for effect. "They were gone!"

"The Twitoles must have taken them!" Hyas concluded, glaring at the twutoles swimming around the dome.

"Guys, no, it's not tw-i-toles, it's tw-u-toles."Asteri corrected as her charges rushed to the sides of the bubble and started yelling at the peaceful creatures.

"Come out and show yourself Cheesy!" Perses challenged. "Or did those wings of yours make you a chicken?!"

Dirk took out a dagger and brandished it. "You have until the count of three to release our comrades!"

"Guys, the twotoles probably haven't done anything!" Aileen noted.

"Pasha and Agnetha probably left when we started fighting." Flora agreed.

"Tw_u_toles." Asteri corrected under her breath.

"Besides, Cheesy is too cute to do anything bad to them," Marea mentioned.

"Listen up ya wannabe platypi!" Potamoi yelled, ignoring them. "I want my brother back! So you either bring him here, or I'm going to bring you death!"

"That didn't make a lot of sense dude," Ophion informed him, but Potamoi just glared at him in response.

"ONE!" Dirk shouted.

"Guys, this is getting ridiculous. How about we don't take our panic out on innocent animals and go look for them ourselves?" Agape offered.

"TWO!" Dirk counted down, being joined by others.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Astraeus said.

"The twutoles will not appreciate you attacking them," Asteri warned.

"THREE!" Potamoi hurtled a spear at a passing twutole, missing its neck and hitting its shell by millimeters

Every twutole in the vicinity turned their heads to them.

"Um…." Potamoi looked fearfully at his group. "My bad?"

The twutoles reared their heads back and created an ear-splitting roar. They rushed toward the dome collectively and started banging their shells onto it repeatedly.

"Hey, Asteri? Flora asked, straining to help her siblings preserved the dome. "A little help?"

Asteri grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Twutoles are neutral creatures, but they have a- how should I put this?- a -sort of- defense system that uses collective attacks against threats, to ensure that it is neutralized as soon as possible. The twutoles will all attack us once while transmitting to their twutole friends to ensure that the threat is not able to escape their attacks, so running isn't an option."

"Then we'll fight them off!" Zoe suggested.

Asteri shook her head "Fight every single twutole? Yes, we're immortal, and they wouldn't be able to kill us, but I would not like it if you made my dear creation extinct. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll figure out a way to get us out of this mess without killing of the relatively harmless and innocent creatures that were just minding their own business until you attacked one of their friends."

"Wait, you're not going to help us?" Ariana clarified.

"Well, I'm sure I could, but some of you need to learn about thinking before doing." she looked pointedly at Dirk, who was drawing in the sand with a dagger.

"What are you drawing?" Dawid asked him.

"It's a… OH! I know! It's a bunch of lines." Althea offered.

"No, it's a map!" Alessa told them.

"Guys, no, it's a blueprint for a transportation device." Dirk corrected.

"Why would we need that?" Lenantos asked him.

"So we will be able to escape easily when the dome breaks," he said matter-of-factly.

"But they'll be able to catch up with us sometime or later." Solar felt the need to mention.

"Well then, I suppose you have a better idea?" Dirk asked him and laughed when no one answered. "We can't fight, we can't run, we can't hide, we can't even protect ourselves long enough! What are we supposed to do?!" he sighed, "I'm sorry guys, you're right, it's not the best plan, but if we avoid confrontation with them for long enough, we might be able to find Pasha and Agnetha and get out of here."

"That's… not actually a bad idea." Dmia stated, straining against the twutoles' relentless attacks. "Only… How are we supposed to 'get out of here?'" She asked and looked at Asteri. "I don't suppose you have a door labeled: EXIT around, do you?"

Aster pondered this for a bit before answering. "Well, I did create an exit, but I placed it in the Twutoles breeding grounds."

Hyades flinched. "And I suppose you have a reason for that?"

"Ya, I do NOT want to be thinking of how these guys… you know, right now. So I don't suppose that they wouldn't be doing... _that_ right now?" Pallas said, blushing so hard he started to look like a radish.

"I'm with Pallas," Asteria said, turning beat red as everyone else nodded.

"Me too, my dad took my sisters and me to see a dragon lay her eggs, to, you know, protect them," Pleiades said, flinching at the memory.

"Who knew how _fast _they could come out?" Hesperides mentioned, causing the entire group to flinch.

Asteri smiled, "Don't worry, It's winter, so none of that would be happening at the moment." she assured them, allowing them a sigh of relief. "But that's not what's bad about the location."

"What's wrong with it?" Soron asked.

"WOULD YOU HURRY UP ALREADY?!" Potamoi shouted, drawing attention to the Oceanus siblings. "We're not going to hold forever."

Asteri grinned apologetically at them. "Sorry, the problem with that, is that it's one of the most sacred places of the species. They are very parental to each and every one of their kind, and even more so to their young. They will never stop hunting us down if something happens to them."

"Hey, guys?" Lenantos said, pointing to shifting sand next to the bubble. "It looks like they know how to dig."

"Dang, Twatoles are smart," Soron noted as a yellow head popped out of the sand.

"Soron? Sweetie? It's tw_u_toles." Asteri corrected in a frighteningly crazed voice, not that the group paid any attention to her as a striking familiar twutole crawled out of his hole.

"Cheezy?" Althea laughed and rushed over to him. "Where are Agnetha and Pasha? Where did they go? Are they safe?"

"_Nuhf Nu, Nuw Nug, Nog No." _Chezzy answered them, gesturing toward the tunnel. "_Nog No." _he repeated more urgently when they wouldn't follow.

The group looked at Asteri. "_Nuhf Nu?"_ Calypso asked. "What kind of language is that?"

Asteri gasped and her hand went up to her heart, conveying offense. "I will have you know that twutoles are a very intelligent species. I am not responsible for their evolution of communication. How dare you disrespect their culture."

"What does he mean?" Dawid asked, interrupting Calypso's response.

"If I'm understanding correctly, he's wanting us to go through his tunnel," she answered.

"How can we trust him?" Soron asked, looking at Chezzy suspiciously.

"Would you just get over here guys? Cheezy can get us to safety." a voice sounded from inside the tunnel.

"Pasha?" Dmia asked a hopeful look on her face in contrast to her exhausted appearance. "Is Agnetha there with you? Are you safe?"

"We're fine!" Agnetha answered. "But could you start heading in here already? The twutoles don't look very happy. What did you do?"

"Later," Althea promised, crawling into the tunnel's entrance. "Woah, this dirt is beautiful."

"Ok, I kinda want to know why she would think dirt is beautiful," Pallas said, walking backward toward Cheezy. "Race you all to the tunnel!" And with that, it only took around 5 minutes for them all to squeeze into the entrance.

"Woah….." Flora said when the tunnel shortly went into an underwater cavern. "This is amazing."

"Is this your home?" Lenantos asked Cheezy.

"Nap," he replied, nodding his head.

"Do all your words start with an 'n'?" Ophion asked, laughing.

"I gotta hand it to ya bud, this was not what I was expecting," Dirk noted, studying the silver flecks in the white sand. "What is this stuff?" He asked Asteri.

"Felumety ash." she answered. "It's the only substance that was able to feed the plants that grow here, and it's not harmful to be around, so I had no problems with putting it here."

"Felumety ash?" Hesperides asked. "I've never heard of anything like that. Is it on Gaea?"

Asteri laughed, "Yes, and no. Felumety is a sort of fire that is only able to be put out with sacred waters. It could be anybody of water as long as it has even the smallest bit of Caos´ magic inside it. However, the ash left behind when the flame is extinguished is affected by the attributes of the water used to destroy it. So, if I used water from the Lethe, then the ash would slowly take away memories. If I used the Acheron, it would bring pain to whoever breathed its fumes. If I used the Phlegethon, it would burn when touched. I concluded that none of those rivers would be good, so I tested the river of Styx.

"What did that do?" Zoe asked.

"It took me quite a while to figure out what it did. But after a few years, I figured it out. Since the river is what we use to prove we are telling the truth, you are not able to lie when touching it. However, there was another thing I found out." she went on, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through her fingers. "When exposed to physical contact, nothing is able to pierce your flesh. I figured out this when I was playing with some gerbils in the sand when a snake came along and attacked one of my dear friends. I found it quite amusing when the snake could never catch it in its teeth. The snake then got frustrated and picked the tiny animal up with its tail and went to bite it-"

"-Oh no!" Alessa cried. "That poor creature! Why didn't you save it?"

Asteri looked sheepish. "I'm… afraid of snakes." she admitted. "Snakes are so fast and… slippery. It makes it's close to impossible to catch them, and you have to go for the neck, which is, is you hadn't noticed, right next to the mouth, where those venomous knives are waiting to dig into your skin." she shivered. "I know it's silly, but I _really_ didn't want to touch the snake."

"So you let the gerbil get eaten? That's not cool." Pasha said, crawling through a tunnel. "Hey, guys."

"Pasha!" Dmia rushed forward and hugged him. "Why'd you leave? We were so worried about you."

"Cheezy wanted to show us something." Agnetha said as she joined them in the cavern.

"And you didn't think to inform us of this?" Flora growled.

"You were yelling at each other." Pasha pointed out.

"And we didn't want to wait for things to cool down." Agnetha added.

"You could've left a note." Potamoi grumbled.

"In case you haven't noticed, we don't have any paper or writing materials." Pasha pointed out.

"Oh, right, well, I guess you're forgiven, you _did _save us from an angry mod of turtle hybrids." Aileen conceded.

"They're called- you know what? Never mind." Asteri growled.

"So… now what?" Solar asked, picking a strawberry from a bush. "We just… Stay here for the rest of eternity? That doesn't sound too great, but it doesn't sound too bad either." he plopped the strawberry into his mouth and nodded his head, obviously pleased.

"I could summon some art supplies from the Void," Althea noted, snapping her fingers and a bunch of colorful liquids in jars appeared on the floor around her. "They might not last that long, but I'm sure there's enough here to paint the ceiling full of murals towards our parents- if that's alright with Cheezy," she added, looking at him and he nodded. She pumped her fist into the air "YES!"

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think we should make up with the twutoles, so, you know, they won't be trying to kill us anymore?" Ariana informed them.

Asteri smiled, "That's a pretty good idea, but I suggest you take Potamoi with you. He is the one who attacked them."

Potamoi squirmed under her gaze. "Ya… Sorry about that guys."

"You attacked the twutoles?!" Pasha glared at them. "How could you?"

Dirk held up his hands in surrender. "We were worried that they took to away ok? And hey, we weren't wrong."

"We'll go with you then, we can be like ambassadors or mediators for a peace treaty." Agnetha offered.

"I guess we have our future set out for us then." Perses smiled. "This might not be too bad after all."

**In the distant future…**

"Mnemosyne, I need a favor." Zeus' voice echoed in the cave.

"What is it dear?" she turned to her husband and smiled. "Have our daughter been behaving themselves in Olympus? Has a mortal been disrespecting you again?" her smile disappeared as a thought crossed her mind. "Is Hera after my girls? That's it, isn't it?"

He shook his head after a beat. "Hera, as far as I know, has not even glared at them. But that's not what I came here to talk about."

Her frown deepened. "What is it?"

"It's about a certain concern of mine. There were a few children who sided with the titans and escaped."

"I'm sure they are no threat to you, My King. The gods will side with you and they will be crushed like bugs if they show signs of rebellion."

"That's not the problem." looked her in the eyes. "They are joined by Asteri."

Mnemosyne gasped. "I thought she went back to Kleponyn." she glared at him. "_You _said she went back to Kleponyn. You lied to everyone."

Zeus flinched. "If I said she was still here, our enemies would call to her for help. And I don't need another Ancient One fighting against me. After Typhon…" he shook his head. "Gaea might have agreed with Asteri before, but they will not hesitate to dethrone me with the chance. Even if it means working together."

She pouted. "If you told me, I could've helped you find her." she raised her eyebrow. "Unless you're asking now, I'm sure I could help you, but I don't know where to start."

"I suppose I am, but I was thinking about what to do when I find her." he shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't actually have a plan for what to do after we find her, and I can't have any liabilities. Gaea is our planet, so we can't destroy her, the Titans are imprisoned or under submission, but Asteri…"

"You don't know how to disable her." she pursed her lips in concentration.

"I admit, it seems the only way to stop a being that powerful is to…" Zeus trailed off, a frown on his face. "I don't know why I'm even talking to you about this. But it feels like you might know how to help me accomplish such a complicated task."

"What is it?"

"I think the only way to stop her for good…" he paused, biting his lip. "Is to fade her." he finished. "But I'm not sure how."

An eerie smile appeared on her face. "I think I'll be able to help you with that."


	4. Hera Still Sucks

'Present-day'

Third POV (I can't seem to do anything else)

Hera Still Sucks

A council of immortals was gathered around a table with a 3-D map. There were twenty people in the room, but one was serving out drinks, obviously not there to strategize among the others. There was Artemis at the head of the table, and at her side, there was Leto and Lupa. Down the table, there was Dionysus, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hecate, Clio, Euterpe, Thalia,(not the demigod) Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus, and Eurus. Lupa was speaking to Artemis, and the rest of the group tried to listen. (or in Dionysus' case, try to stay awake)

"They were spotted at the edge of the Canadian border before my wolves lost track of them," Lupa said, tapping her claw on an area between the Huron and Superior Lakes. "It seems that Zeus wasn't bluffing after all. He really _would _go anywhere to escape capture. Not that I would blame him."

"How many were with him?" Leto asked.

"It was hard to be sure, there were a lot of nymphs and satyrs, but we can now confirm that Aries, Persephone, Athena, and Demeter have joined his cause. Only Chaos would know why."

"Have any demigods joined them?" Artemis asked, not taking her eyes off the map.

Lupa nodded. "A child was with them, but we weren't sure whose child it was or if she was accompanying them willingly."

"Great," Artemis growled. "They have a hostage with them. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Many things my queen," Lupa informed her. "But we have to go into Canada in order to give chase, and I'm not sure if it's the best idea. The dryads might have called their allies into stage an ambush."

"We should at least send spies after them, to make sure that we will be able to catch them if they ever enter our territory," Leto suggested.

"I'll send skeletons after them," Hades offered, voice shaking as if he couldn't believe he would ever say it. "Should I do a kill order, or just scouting?" he asked Artemis, who still hadn't taken her eyes off the map.

"Artemis?" Leto asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Artemis blinked at Leto, startled. "I'm sorry, I was lost in thought, what was the question?"

"I'm going to send skeletons after them," Hades informed her. "I asked if you wanted me to give the kill order, or just keep track of their location."

"Oh. Well," she thought for a second. "Send in ten soldiers, have five attacks them, willingly loose, as to lower their guard, and keep the other five as scouts." she considered this and looked back at him. "Are you even able to do this? It would take a lot of effort to control your hold on them there."

Hades considered this. "I do believe that I'll be able to keep my control for them while Pluto takes care of the underworld."

"That's great, is there anything else we need to look into?" Artemis looked at the 18 others sitting around the table, but none of them seemed to have anything else to say. "Nothing?" she snapped. "So we're just waiting around, not making any preparations for taking out Zeus, and there isn't anything that could help us speed this up?"

"One question Commander." a tiny voice piped up and they turned to meet a small woman holding a tray of drinks. "But what do we intend to do about the demigods? They might be threatened by Zeus to fight with him and we'll have to fight against our children. We should inform them of what's going on, otherwise, the demigods will have to risk their lives again, and not in our favor."

"Dang it. Why didn't I think of that?" Hera slapped her forehead. "Hebe's right, we should ask for another quest of Demigods to chase our enemies back here, I'm sure that they'll be able to figure it out. I'll go tell Chiron about this, he'll help us." she started to wave goodbye, but she was stopped when Hebe slapped her in the face.

"How _dare _you throw their lives on the line again like you were at one of those coin-toss games that Dekin-Daves create every year," she growled, turning to the council of immortals around the table. "They have helped us so much in the last decade alone then we have probably ever helped the demigod race combined. Have we forgotten how to fight our own battles?" she asked them, turning her gaze to Hermes. "You, when you lost George and Martha, you disrupted Percabeth's date to ask them if they could help you out because your ego couldn't handle retrieving it yourself."

"Percabeth?" Hermes gave her a confused look, but it turned sheepish when he realized what she had just revealed. "Well- you see…" he trailed off, trying to come up with a good excuse.

"And you," Hebe went on, pointing at Dionysus and ignoring the stuttering Hermes. "You spent the last century with the demigods at Camp Half-Blood and couldn't even have the decency to be nice for a change!"

Dionysus shrugged his shoulders in his chair as he lay sprawled out, but didn't say anything.

Hebe growled at him, not liking his attitude. "I'll deal with you later." she turned on her mother, Hera, and her glare would've withered forests. "And you." she booped the queen on the nose. "Kidnapped two innocent Demigods, wiped their memory, didn't tell their loved ones about their location, had them both go on dangerous missions, and all of it _without their permission._" she let out a sigh. "Can't we just be _protecting _them instead of _using _them."

The group didn't know what to respond to that, so it was quite the silence before one god spoke up.

"Of course you're right," Hera said, surprising them all. "It is time for things to change. Zeus' reign is no more. We must strive to be fair, and just. Which is something I have never been." she sighed, turning to her only daughter and placing her hands on her shoulders. "Which is why I am stepping down."

A gasp filled the room as Hera reached up and gently pulled off the golden crown from her hair, holding it out in front of her.

"Mother, please," Hephaestus stuttered. "You can't be serious. You don't realize what this will do to you."

"I will survive it, it's not as serious as you think my son, in fact, it might actually be refreshing," she reassured him, studying Hebe. "You have always been the one to stay to the side and support your father and me, no matter how unfair our decisions have been. And one of those was forcing you into the shadows." her smile was soft, so unlike her that Hebe took a step back in shock. "My dear daughter, you are so unlike your siblings, I never thought you might…"

"Might what?" Hebe asked when she didn't finish.

"Nothing," Hera promised. "So, let's skip all the sappy stuff and cut to the chase. Would you like to be queen or not?"

"Queen?" Hebe blinked in disbelief. "Me?"

"No, Aphrodite sitting behind you." Hera laughed when Hebe turned around and bowed to the shocked goddess behind her. "Of _course _you silly. Now is it a yes or a no?"

"I-well, I don't know, well, sure!" Hebe stuttered, then froze when she realized what just happened.

Hera smiled, "That was a yes, now hold still while I put this on you." she delicately brought the golden crown up to Hebe's head, and Hebe, being obedient as always, held still. It was as if the entire room held its breath as Hera placed the crown on Hebe's head and sent a blinding flash everywhere. When the witnesses opened their eyes again, they saw Hera slumped on her chair, exhausted, and Hebe holding her mother's hand, concerned.

"Hera?" Hebe asked, breaking the stunned silence. "Are you alright?"

"Of course my dear, I just need to rest." she turned to the congregation of immortals. "I trust you can handle things from here? I, on the other hand, need to rest. But don't worry, I'll return as soon as possible when you need me." she considered this for a second. "Actually, _if _you need me. Zeus will not likely believe anything I tell him, and I'm not very great at war strategies, so I might not be of any use to you at all." she gave a tired smile to Hebe. "So it's just as well we have a new queen to assist. Farewell, my darnings, I need my beauty rest." and with that, she snapped her fingers, likely teleporting to her quarters.

"Ya, I agree with her," Hermes said after a beat of silence as everyone tried to come out of their confusion. "She _really _needed her beauty sleep."

Everyone burst into a fit of giggles and the meeting was quickly adjourned, with Aphrodite of all people leading the shaken Hebe out to help her be prepared for queenship. Hepheteus wisely pointed out that it would be better to wait until the matter of Zeus was solved for the coronation, but his wife (or ex-wife, it was hard to keep track of their relationship) insisted on setting up preparations for it, claiming that 'As soon as Zeus is properly taken care of, the subjects will need someone to fill the power vacuum as soon as possible, so Hebe Dear needs to be ready as soon as possible.' which wasn't a bad idea, so no one voiced any objections as she started going through a list of things needed for the crowning.

"I suppose I'll have to inform Hercules, Alexiares, and Anicetus of this." she said quietly, which Aphrodite responded with: "I'll take care of it, all you need to worry about are the coronation colors, flowers, guests, what century dress you want, your throne if you want to change the crown because Hera did NOT have the best taste in headgear, decorations..." Aphrodite went on and on as she dragged the poor girl into her temple.

"Do you think she's ready for this?" Artemis asked her mother, watching the two fade away from view.

"I'm sure she could be," Leto assured her. "But Hera didn't prepare Hebe _at all _for this burden. So it might take years for her to be truly ready. Until then, we just need to help her rule."

"I don't think she was the right choice," Artemis confessed. "Yes, she is a good goddess, but she is not the one to rule the gods. Especially after she has been our _cupbearer_. For her entire life, she's been ordered around. It might be too much of a change to have _her _be ordering _us _around."

Leto sighed. "I suppose you're right. Hera can be a bit pushy and controlling. Ok, a lot pushy and controlling." she relented when Artemis raised her eyebrow at her. "And Hebe might be the exact opposite, but what do we do? Hebe agreed to the throne in front of witnesses. She can't just step down. And I do believe that if she does, Hera wouldn't accept it. She doesn't like to be wrong."

"That much is true, but these events have side-tracked us from Hebe's original question: What do we tell the demigods?

"I'll stop by Camp Half-Blood and explain everything. And I'm sure Lupa could take care of New Rome." Leto offered."I'll leave you to it then," Artemis said and Leto went off toward the wolf goddess. She sighed as she realized that she was now alone in the room and exited. She walked out of the temple into a courtyard full of flowers. It was a beautiful sight to see, but that wasn't what she was there for. She stepped along the path until she came to an ivory statue surrounded by laurel trees in a crescent shape.

"Hi, bro." Artemis greeted as she sat down on the marble bench facing the statue. Apollo's figure was his own form, not whatever monstrosity Zeus placed him in as a mortal, it was around 9 feet tall and he was holding a lyre like he was actually about to play it. His lips were curved in a smile, but his eyes were filled with determination like he was about to save the world or beat python again.

"Zeus retreated to Canada apparently," she informed him, crossing her legs in a casual manner, but her face was twisted in a scowl. "Hades is sending his monsters after them to track their location, but we don't actually have a good plan on how to beat them. Mother went to talk to the demigods with Lupa about the situation, but Hebe demanded that they are left out of any conflict, but knowing them if they think they can help, they will." she started to play with her hands. "Hera crowned Hebe queen today, it was quite abrupt really, no one had any idea that Hera would ever step down willingly, so it came as a surprise to everyone." Artemis sighed, I wonder what you would do if you were here." she smiled. "Nevermind, you would probably start singing a song or making a haiku about how awesome you are and tell everyone to come to another concert of yours."

Tears pricked her eyes "I always wanted to put a stop to your dumb poems, but-" her voice cracked. "I never knew how much I missed them." she looked at the statue again, hoping that something would trigger a reaction out of the piece of ivory. "Never knew how much-" she started, counting the syllables on her fingers. "That I would miss those dumb things." she paused, trying to figure out what should be the next line. "I'm sorry Apollo, these things are harder then I thought…" she paused and then smiled. "They seemed so easy." she finished.

"That was beautiful." a voice sounded behind her and she jumped up, startled, drew her dagger, and spun around.

"Sorry," the nymph apologized, holding her hands out in surrender. "I thought you heard me coming." the nymph paused, a confused look on her face. "Aren't you the hunter goddess? Isn't that kinda your 'thing,' being able to be aware of your-" she stopped herself, not wanting to offend the goddess. "I'm sorry my lady," she said, bowing, "It won't happen again."

Artemis blushed, _I should have been paying more attention. _"I trust you will not speak of this to anyone?" she said, trying to retain what little dignity she had left.

"Of course ladyship," the nymph said, bowing again. "I will forget this ever happened," she promised. After a few moments of standing around awkwardly, she turned around and started to briskly flee back down the path.

"Wait-" Artemis called after her and the nymph screeched to a stop. "Perhaps…" she paused again, choosing her words carefully. "Perhaps you could keep me company?"

The nymph stared back at her like she had just been asked to go into a den of angry bunnies. "If that is what you wish, my Lady," her smile looked forced. "Then how could I say no?"

"Thank you." Artemis sat back down on the bench and patted the seat next to her. "Come, sit." she waited for the tiny girl to sit down. "Now tell me, what's your name?"

"Chamógelo." she said, "But my friends call me Chal, it's easier to pronounce," she explained.

"Well then Chal, it is nice to meet you."

Neither of them seemed to know what to say next for a time until Chal looked over at her and said, a bit hesitant, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I suppose it would be good too," Artemis looked at the statue. "It's not fair that mortals get an underworld but we don't. I mean, ya, there's Tartarus, but faded gods just…" she made a sweeping motion with her hands. "...Fade away. They don't go anywhere, they just disappear, never to be seen again…" she frowned. "But… I still feel his presence, if just a tiny bit, but…" she paused, considering what to say next. "I think it's because of Apollo's roman form, but... it doesn't feel like that…"

"What do you mean?" Chal asked.

"I know it might sound cheesy, but I think his memory is keeping him alive. Like, Pan was still existing even after he 'died,' but Apollo's realms aren't dying, and no one is forgetting him, so I think he is able to exist here, like, in spirit form."

"That… actually makes a lot of sense, Apollo died as a mortal, but there was no underworld for him to go to, so he's just a wandering spirit, like the humans." Chal noted, an exciting look appearing on her face. "Does that mean Pan is like that? We still remember him, and his realm isn't completely destroyed."

"I don't know," Artemis confessed. "I mean, that's just a theory, so it could be entirely false, so don't go spreading the word about this, I don't want to get their hopes up."

"Don't worry my lady, you can trust me," Chal promised. "But what are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to make sure he didn't die in vain. Meg, Grey, and Crest went to New Rome to help defend against the Emperors, so I'll make sure that by the end of the fight, that band of murderers will be no more."

2-6-20


	5. The First Date

I think it's about time we had another haiku title.

We wait for the train,

We want to go to Wendy's

I want chicken nug-

Grey's POV.

"Well, I guess this is Pittsburg," I noted as we looked around for someplace to eat. "Who knew it was so empty?"

"There's a place called 9 Cafe here." Lucky pointed at its sign. "There's also a Soul Food Connection, but that seems like a place a monster makes food out of our souls."

"Geeze, where can a guy go to get some Wendy's?" I grumbled. If a place doesn't have a Wendy's in the area, then it's not worth spending time in.

Lucky sighed next to me. "Ya, I want it to, but I'm not seeing any, so we'll have to settle for something else."

"I say we go back to the train station and go down a different street." I offered, but mostly, Lucky doesn't listen to me and just does something different, so I try not to care as much when they get shot down. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

"I guess since we have no better plan." Lucky said, leading to way back down 'Ross Avenue.' It always makes me extremely curious about why they name the streets the way they do.

"Well, there's a KFC right there," I said, pointing to the sign of the creepy-glasses dude. "Can we go? I really want chicken nuggets."

"Well, there's an Mc Donalds down there." Lucky pointed to the 'M' sign through the tunnel under the railroad. "They sell chicken nuggets, and I want a cheeseburger. So we both win." she started walking in the direction of the tunnel before I could say anything.

"So…''Lucky said, casting a side-glance at me. "I guess this is our first date."

"What?" I asked, utterly confused. "This isn't a date! We're just… We're just going someplace to eat while waiting for our train to arrive."

"Sure…" she said, but I could've sworn I saw her smirking in the dark under the tunnel.

"Alright, we have a total of $55 from Lupa and we still need money to get to Long Island Sound after arriving in New York. So I would suggest we don't use anything more than $15." I said as we looked at the menu. "Well, I want chicken nuggets, you want a cheeseburger, So I say we get a Big Mac large meal with 40-piece chicken nuggets."

"_40-piece?" _Lucky frowned. "I'm not sure if even Horace would eat that much."

"It's just 9 bucks Lucky, and I'm not going to eat it all at once. It's always good to carry around food, just in case."

Lucky sighed, "As long as you're satisfied then, but you better ask for a pack of ranch for my fries."

"Ranch on fries? That's a little weird."

"Not just ranch, I mix it up with catsup to make the perfect fry sauce."

"Alright then, go get the catsup and a table for us. I'll take care of ordering our stuff." Grey told her and walked up to the counter. He ordered their food and then waited to pick it up. While waiting, his eyes drifted over to the playground on the other side of the building. He counted at least 15 children playing there. Smiling, laughing, shouting. It seemed as though all of them were having fun until he spotted a solitary boy sitting on a bench with his mom.

The boy was probably no more than five, with messy black hair and green eyes. He looked at the playground longingly but seemed hesitant to join his fellow children. His behavior did not go unnoticed by his mother though. The Brunet older woman smiled and leaned over to whisper something in her son's ear. He looked at her, eyes wide, and a huge grin spread over his face. Grey saw the boy mouth 'Really?!' and hastened over to play. Grey laughed as the child rushed over to the monkey bars and swung on them and heard the excited shout of "Look Mom! I'm playing!"

"Order 138?" an employee asked, placing a tray of food on the counter and ringing a bell.

"Here," he said, going over to collect the food. After collecting the food, he looked for where Lucky had gone off to and spotted her looking at the playground through a window across the room. He started to head over but realized he forgot the ranch and went back to ask for some.

"The kids are really cute, playing with each other." Lucky mentioned when he finally arrived and she set to work with opening a ranch packet and mixing catsup in it with a fry until it turned pink. "There was this one kid that would play until his mom told him that if he played for at least five minutes, then they could go to get blue ice-cream. Kinda strange, but it worked." she pointed over to the kid from before, who was now walking in circles around a support beam with one hand on it. Every so often the child would lock his hand in place and his arm would coil around the bar, and right before he reached his stuck hand, he would unstick it and start to freely walk around the pole.

"Is that what she said?" Grey opened a packet of the ranch, dipped a chicken nugget in it, and took a large bite of the crusty goodness. "I wondered what happened to get him to be so excited, he didn't seem happy to be there, but he also seemed like he wanted to play."

"You noticed that too? Huh, I didn't realize you could see him for the counter."

"It wasn't that hard, There was no one blocking the way, and I was bored, waiting for the food."

"Well, maybe we could order some ice cre-" she stopped suddenly, with a startled look in her eyes. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Grey asked her.

"It was like we were in a different place… there was this bright place with a huge temple. We were running into the temple and…" her face scrunched in confusion. "And… there was… A woman in the temple. She looked hurt, and she kept repeating…" she squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. "The final spell… The final spell…" She opened her eyes again. "You sure you didn't see it?"

"No, you were talking about ice-cream - then-" Searing pain shot through his head like an arrow and suddenly…

Lucky was crouched next to a shaking figure, a woman, with midnight black hair and pale skin. They were in a white temple, with images of flying creatures covering the wall. There were Roman Tuscan pillars supporting the ceiling, which was no more than twenty feet tall.

"Asteri, please! You have to stop! You fixed everything, we're fine." Lucky grabbed Asteri's shoulders and shook them. "Zeus can't hurt us anymore! Snap out of it!"

"The final spell… The final spell…." Asteri kept repeating.

"It's getting worse, we need Pasha, he always knows what to do with these." Grey found himself saying.

"Pasha went to the Southern Loop, we don't have time to get him," Lucky said, holding out her hand. "Give me your knife."

Grey pulled out a two-foot black dagger out of a sheath on his belt. Intricate carvings littered the entire blade, which looked to be made of some sort of obsidian, and Grey felt something strikingly familiar about it. "Are you sure you can handle it?" he said, handing it over to her, "You've never done it before."

"Pasha gave enough demonstrations for even Soron to figure out, I'm pretty sure I can do it," she promised him, pressing the flat part of the blade to Asteri's right shoulder, and then to her left, leaving black marks on the areas.

"Animæquior esto, abiit rex, non opus est celare." Lucky started chanting and the runes on Asteri started to glow a dark blue. "Ibit luna sidera moritur, et ignis non requiescent." the runes turned into a flaming red and Asteri grew still, saying nothing.

Finally, the runes' glowing dissipated and the woman stirred. She opened her eyes to reveal a gorgeous blue and they turned to Lucky. "Again?" she asked, her voice raspy, and Lucky nodded.

Exhausted, she sighed and she shut her eyes again. "I felt… a pull taking me back. I thought if I could grab onto it, then we could return, but…" she shook her head. "It's hopeless."

"Maybe not." Grey found himself saying. "We're only trapped here because no one knows of us back in the Living. Maybe if we can get one of our own on the other side and they can work on making a pathway from there to here."

"But how would we even accomplish that?" Lucky asked him.

"I don't know, but it's a start and… like… have… anything…" his voice faded away, sounding distant and the vision started fading. He soon found himself looking at Lucky's eyes again, from right before the painful vision. "Woah… That was…"

"Intense?" she finished for him.

"Yeah… there was so much detail… It felt like my brain was on fire… Like I could think of everything and yet nothing at the same time…" He shook his head and when he stopped, he caught sight of the clock on the wall. "Shoot! We got to go! The train will arrive in a few minutes."

Lucky tilted her head at him when he began to pack their . "So… That's it? You're just going to drop it? Not even going to tell me what happened or who she was?"

"We can't afford to miss the train. We made a mistake with the airport, and I don't intend to repeat that." He said, picking up the tray and taking it up to the counter. "I'll tell you everything on the train, I promise, but we really need to hurry." he then asked for a to-go bag and a bunch of ranch and catsup packets.

"Alright then," she said, looking at the clock, realising the train would leave in ten minutes. "Crap! We really need to hurry. Common!" she grabbed his wrist and they rushed out the doors. Little did they know that on the other side of the restaurant, a mother was confronting her son who couldn't get the horrifying flash out of his head.

He saw the dead body of a winged turtle on the floor, yellow shell cracked, with blood leaking out of it. Dark figures surrounded him, friend or foe he had no idea, but he would never forget the feeling of absolute grief clutching his heart at the sight of someone he never remembered meeting.

"It's okay baby, it was probably nothing. You've haven't had your nap yet my dear. It's ok, we can still catch some ice-cream before our train arrives to take us back to Manhattan. You can sleep on the trip back, I promise, but you gotta stay with me for a bit longer, 'kay bud?"

The child wiped his eyes and buried his face in his mother's shirt. "It hurt mommy… and no one would help it…" he started sobbing. "Why would they not help it!? It was hurt!"

"Hey… don't worry, I'm sure it was just a daydream. It probably wasn't even real and… whatever you saw is actually okay in real life!"

Percy's sobs quieted. "Really?" he said, looking up at his mother, tears still streaking down his face.

"Yeah, don't worry my dear." Sally promised, desperately grabbing onto anything that would help her son. "Now, common, let's go get some ice-cream."


	6. Some Friendships never end

**I'm trying to shorten these notes at the beginning of these.**

You Won't Hold Me Back This Time

The Wolf House

Third-person POV

"And that's how we got here. And we're asking you to allow us to go to New Rome by sharing its location with us." Horace asked the large wolf sitting on the raised platform in front of them.

Lupa studied them, no doubt trying to spot any weaknesses in their story. "I'm impressed, not many demigods are able to speak to or attract the attention of their godly parents so early on in their lives."

"Wait… You're… impressed?" Lucky clarified. "I thought you were never impressed with anything."

Lupa's mouth curved in what might've been her version of a smile. "You would be surprised by what I do that is different than what people tell of. I am a wolf goddess and am not impressed easily, but I do know how to recognize talent."

"So you'll help us get to New Rome?" Grey asked, hope sparking in his eyes.

Lupa's 'smile' dissipated. "I train Roman demigods, not greek. If I were to take you two, it would cause panic and likely war with the demigods of the pantheons, I am sorry, you will have to go to Chiron's camp, it is located on Long Island Sound-"

"Wait a minute." Grey interrupted. "I'm sorry, but you said 'you two' instead of 'you three.' Are you saying that one of us able to go but the others aren't? That's not happening. We stay together."

Lupa tilted her head. "Perhaps, but it is not your choice to make, it is Horace's."

"You take all of us or none of us. We're a team. Right, Horace?" Lucky looked at her friend for support, but he was just standing there looking at Lupa as if she asked him to choose between Chick Fil A or Wendy's. An impossible choice between two good options.

"He will be safe in New Rome. Are you going to take him away from what he has always wanted? A home to be safe in with a chance to protect others."

"But we agreed that we would always be together!" Grey looked at Horace, his friend that always seemed to make him happy. "Please Grey, don't do this."

Horace looked at Lucky and Grey, guilt in his eyes. "I…" he couldn't finish. Lucky and Grey both knew that they were placing their friend in an impossible situation, but they didn't understand what to do either. They wanted their friend to be happy, but they also didn't want to say goodbye.

"So that's it huh? You're just going to stay here, say: "Thanks for the help! Good luck not dying!" and push us away?" Grey growled.

"No! Yes? I don't know!" Horace yelled back. "What do you expect me to do? You're not allowed to come with me, and I don't want to go back out there!" Horace took a deep breath and spoke again. "You think I want this? You guys are my only friends. I don't want to lose you."

Lucky sighed and brought Grey in for a hug. (Much to Grey's shock) "It's alright Horace, stay here, stay safe, and don't worry, I'm sure we'll see each other again someday." Lucky met Grey's glare with her own and mouthed: 'Get over here right now.' Grey sighed and came in himself.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled, This is the best option for you and I shouldn't hold you back," Grey said as he joined the hug.

"It seems I was always the one to go off and do something without you guys." tears formed in Horace's eyes. "I never wanted this to happen. Are you sure you are going to be okay? I would never forgive myself if something bad happened to you that I could have prevented."

"It'll be fine, it's just across the U.S. and we might have enough cash for plane tickets." Lucky promised. "Not a lot of bad things could happen in the sky."

"Your transportation will be provided for," Lupa promised. "It is astounding on how much humans charge for a simple thing such as flight, but I have some pegasi friends that might be willing to take you."

"Why are you helping us?" Grey asked. "I thought immortals aren't allowed to help."

"We are allowed to assist in some cases, and I do not find joy in splitting up friends like this, so if Jupiter has a problem with that, he'll have to get through me," she growled, showing her teeth and putting fear into even the wolves nearby.

"Well," Lucky cleared her thought. "We really appreciate you help Lupa, and allowing Horace to go on the path to New Rome. But-"

"-You still have questions." Lupa finished. "And that should be expected, but it never ceases to surprise me on how wise demigods can be. So ask away and I will try to give my best answer."

Lucky hesitated before asking something that surprised all of them. "Why didn't our parents told us about this? Shouldn't they have known that we would have been separated?"

Lupa tilted her head. "I am not sure. The gods' ways have always been… unique with each one. Perhaps they thought that if you weren't worried about being separated, you would enjoy your time together more. It also confuses me on why they explained the difference between the two pantheons and not mention how Horace will be in the Roman camp. Perhaps they didn't understand the rules of who belongs where and assumed that you would all be able to attend New Rome." she growled. "Some gods just think that I will take care of everything concerning their children. But I do not enjoy being ordered around by some of the worst hypocrites in the cosmos. One time, I went on a hunting trip for one measly month and when I returned, Jupiter scolded me for 'abandoning my duties' and punished me by forbidding any meat in my diet for a year."

"That's horrible." Horace frowned. "Jupiter is a jerk."

"Indeed, I cannot say I am very fond of his rule, but I am only one being, I cannot stand against Jupiter alone. And even if I had help, I would not enjoy going against the demigods I trained. Contrary to popular belief, they are important to me, and it places me at a checkpoint on any rebellious ideas I might have. I cannot go against Olympus without Jupiter using the children as a living shield."

"You really thought this through, haven't you," Grey asked.

"The thought of rebellion has crossed my mind on multiple occasions, I do not deny it, and I doubt that any immortal being hasn't had the idea of rebellion. But we are getting off-topic, aren't we? You are free to stay the night, but I would prefer if you would leave as early as you can, some of my pack… Let's just say that they aren't big fans of Greeks."

The next day.

"I'll miss you guys," Horace said, bringing the not-quite-official-couple in for a hug. "And hey, if you ever find a way to get the Camp's inventors to make the monster-proof phone? Call me." he paused. "If I can get my hands on one of those as well."

Lucky laughed. "We'll try." giving him one last squeeze before breaking off from the hug and climbing onto the large grey wolf behind her. The wolf growled but didn't put up a fight when Grey climbed on after her. They waved, as the wolf started off toward the nearest airport, but they didn't say goodbye. All three of them knew deep inside that this wasn't going to be the end.


	7. Apollo?

Apollo? What the-

heck? Why are you not dead? Oh-

wait, Roman, Sorry.

'Present Day'

Third POV

_Dang monsters. Dumb pilot. _Meg thought as she swung her swords at the weird flying ghouls that ripped off the cover of the Hurst. _Why can't we catch a break? _"We almost there Grey?" she asked aloud at the mortal driving. "These monsters look angry. And they won't die." she glared at the grey skeleton things. "Can you give me a hand here Crest?"

"No!" Crest growled. "Why would you want my hand? And if I _did _give it to you, then I wouldn't be able to play my lyre." he held the golden instrument to his chest like a baby guarding his new toy at bedtime.

"Help me out here!" Meg demanded, kicking one of the gross things off Apollo's coffin. She was still confused about how to feel about the plane they flew here on breaking down mysteriously, causing the pilot to apologetically inform them that he would not be able to take the coffin to Camp Half-Blood. Grey rented a Hurst to help them transport it, and things were going as well as things could go as a demi-god-monster-clear-sighted-mortal trio could go and then these dang ghouls came and ruined everything. Crest had all but named Apollo's old lyre and refused to use it as a weapon.

"We should arrive in around five minutes, just hold out for a little while longer," Grey promised. "And Crest, please help Meg, she shouldn't be the only one fighting."

"I _will not _endanger my lyre's condition with violent actions," Crest stated firmly.

"Then use my sebatlat! It's in my backpack."

Meg sliced off one of the ghoul's hands. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying!" he promised, rummaging around in Grey's backpack. He finally grabbed hold of a curved cylinder and pressed a button on the edge and two double-edged blades came out of the ends.

"Is that a double lightsaber?" Meg asked when she saw the weapon, but quickly

"I based the design on it, yes, but it's just a mix of imperial gold, celestial bronze, and the tiniest bit of stygian iron. It works like one of those toy light-sabers, but the button extends a steel rod to make sure the blades-"

"You're such a nerd," Meg informed him but realized this probably wasn't the best time. "Eyes on the road!"

Crest joined her in attacking the monsters as the Herst sped through the highway. Meg wondered what the mortals might be seeing. With the mist, it could be pretty much anything.

"I see it!" Grey informed them, pointing at a tunnel through the mountain. "Almost there. Almost there. Almost there..." it became his little chanting in the background as he kept repeating it over and over. Soon, Meg and Crest joined in and they started to sound like a weird cult.

They quickly approached the tunnel and the guards on duty spotted them. "Incoming!" the one on the left said, raising a throwing dagger and nailing one of the beats in the forehead. "Inform the praetor Susan, I'll take care of these monstrosities."

"You better not die Lazu, you're taking me out to dinner tonight," Susan warned him, drawing a shuriken and also nailing one of them in the head and scaring the monsters off for a bit. Susan then started flagging down Grey as Lazu.

"Let me guess, Apollo? I didn't know you were…" she gestured to Grey's figure when he climbed out of the car as if it explained everything. "Leo told us that you guys would come, but he never said anything of a pandos coming with you."

"I'm not… I'm not Apollo, Crest is with us, and the angry girl on top is Meg, but we should probably get inside."

Meg growled at him but said nothing as Grey climbed up to help them pull the coffin out of the vehicle. Susan's eyes widened in shock but quickly set to work helping them carry it through the tunnel.

"I was able to close off the entrance, and kill most of those eurynomos, so that should be good," Lazu said as he jogged up the path, catching up with the group and looked at Susan in a questioning manner when he noticed what they were carrying, but didn't press as he took to carrying the back of the box. Meg noticed a trail of blood dripping down his head, coming out of a shallow scratch, but didn't say anything.

They walked in silence the entire way through, respectful in a way, and though the new-comers refused to explain who was in the coffin, Susan and Lazu could sense that it was someone important. And when they finally exited the tunnel to reveal New Rome, they were greeted with a congregation of people, one of them was no doubt Praetor Reyna and Praetor Frank, who rushed to meet them.

"Lord Apollo, thank goodness you're here. We need your help and-" Reyna stopped when she noticed the black box.

"What happened?" Frank demanded.

"Praetors, it's an honor to finally meet you and be here, but… I'm not Apollo," Grey said, placing the coffin down and respectively knelt and resting his hand on it. "There was… a terrible price to pay for completing the quest. But…" he looked at Meg, who was just standing there, looking at the box. "Meg would be the one to better explain what happened."

Meg looked up, meeting the Praetors' eyes, and started to speak. "We arrived in southern California at a place called Palm Springs…"

"Well, you sure have been on many adventures in the past few weeks, haven't you?" Frank said when Meg had finally finished. "I'm sure you're very exhausted at the moment, but there's something you need to see, and perhaps we could find a way to fix this… situation."

"What is it?" Crest asked, drawing suspicious stares from the Romans.

Reyna didn't seem as affected as the others for talking with a pandos and said. "It might be better to show you."

"Ya, but… Now that we know about…" Frank gestured to the coffin. "Things are starting to make a lot more sense now."

"We will come with you, but what should we do about..." Grey copied Frank with gesturing to the coffin. "It probably wouldn't be safe for it to stay out in the open like this."

"We can take it with us," Frank promised. "It might actually help."

And with that, the two praetors led the newcomers through New Rome. Susan and Lazu came with them, but no one voiced any complaints. And now that they weren't trying to survive at the moment, Meg could get a good look at their new friends.

Lazu was blond, with brown eyes, light skin, and a confident smirk somehow always on his face. Meg figured him to be no more than 15, but he acted so much younger. He seemed to infect any Roman they passed with his positivity and seemed to know all of their names. He would nod his head, smile, and greet each and every one of them by name. It was almost enough to get herself to smile, but the most she could do at the moment was an extremely small smile when Lazu met her eyes and grinned. She shouldn't smile when carrying her friend's coffin. It just wasn't the time for that sort of thing.

Susan appeared to be the exact opposite of her partner, with her dark brown hair, dark blue eyes, light skin, and seriousness she seemed to carry around. But when she looked at Lazu, the seriousness seemed to dissipate. Like he was the only light in this crazy world. And Meg couldn't help but envy them, even in the tiniest bit. Here they were, carrying her friend's dead body and they were still able to be positive.

Soon, they arrived at a marble temple with gold patterns dotting the walls. A lyre was commonly spotted around it, so Meg found it easy to guess which temple this was.

"You're taking us to Apollo's temple? What's here?" she found herself asking.

"Just… follow us inside, we don't quite know how to tell you about this." Reyna said, opening the door and leading them inside. It looked a lot like the Apollo's cabin and CHB, except without the beds and campers. There was an altar in the center of the building and something lay on top of it. Meg's face turned white when she saw what it was.

"Is…" she gulped. "Is that what I think it is?"

Franks sighed. "He popped up in here from out of nowhere a while ago, and we're not quite sure what to do with him. He doesn't seem to be asleep, but also not awake at the same time. We know he's not dead because he's breathing, but…" Meg tuned out his voice, which was a sort of talent she grew into when she met Apollo and walked up to the altar.

If she didn't know who he was, she wouldn't have recognized him. He looked so different from the one she knew, but she could see that it really _was _him. The one from the paintings on the wall of the very room they were in.

"Apollo?" she asked, voice soft, but it had some sort of anger behind it that she always seemed to feel around him. But it wasn't him. Not the one she knew at least. But it also was him? "This is his Roman form, right?" she asked out loud, interrupting Frank's explanation on what he was doing here.

"That's what we're thinking," Reyna said, joining her at the altar. "And now that we know what happened, I would suppose this was the effect of Apollo's Greek form dying. And now that we know what caused this…"

"We still don't know how to fix it." Frank finished for her.

An idea popped into Meg's head, it seemed crazy, but no one else had a clue of what to do.

"Crest, hand me Apollo's lyre please," she said, reaching out. Crest hesitated before reluctantly placing it into her hand like it was a baby made of glass.

"Do you have the Arrow of Dodama or whatever?" she asked Grey.

He nodded "I'll get it from my backpack." he swung his backpack, knelt down and started rummaging around it before holding it up proudly. "Here," he said, placing it in Meg's hand.

Meg wasted no time in crossing the two items in a cross and placing them in the god's hands. Why a cross? No idea, it just sounded right at the moment.

The reaction was immediate, glowing strands burst from the items and flowed into the god, lighting him up like one of those lightbulbs that scientists attach to bikes to show kids that they can create energy with a bike pedal. The glow soon became too bright to look at, so she had to turn away at some point, but when the glow died down and Meg could look at the figure again…

The god was still asleep.

"What?" Meg asked, incredulous. "That's it? Nothing happened? What kind of stupid joke is this?"

"Dang, I really thought that would work." Susan said, folding her arms.

Suddenly, the god sat up and screamed.

It was so unexpected that as a whole, the group jumped back, some losing their balance and slipping on the marble flooring. Apollo pressed on his temples, like he was acting as Zeus from when Athena popped out of his head, and was doing a really, _really _good job at it.

Luckily, his voice gave out and he gasped, shaking his head, and with ever shake he flipped from Lester to Apollo, and back again.

"STOP!" he begged, curling up on the altar like a toddler throwing a fit. "It hurts… please… _stop!_"

"Apollo?" Meg asked him, confused. "What's going on? Are you hurt?"

"NO!" he screamed, his shrieks getting louder. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"What do we do now?" Grey asked the praetors, speaking above the screams.

"Wait… I think I know what's going on." Frank said, "We're thinking of Apollo as the god that died right? His Greek form."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Crest snapped, looking at Apollo's lyre that was thrown onto the floor hungrily.

"Well, gods change their forms from Roman to Greek depending on how they're viewed by the people around them right?" Frank went on, sounding excited. "Well, since we're seeing him as his dead Greek form…"

"...We should instead be seeing him in his alive Roman form." Lazu finished.

"Stop it! STOP IT YOU PUNY MORTALS!" the altar cracked open,sending the group scrambling away.

Meg frowned, "But… how can I just… do that?" Meg asked them. "Especially since I never met his Roman form? How do I know what he's like?"

"I don't think that you would be able to." Reyna admitted. "I actually don't think any Greek Demigod could do so, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave." she said, waving her hand at the door, distracted, but when she realized how dismissive that seemed, she looked at them apologetically. "It's not that we don't appreciate your help, but we don't think that you could be around Apollo and not think of your friend."

"GET OUT!" the immortal screamed again.

"We need to leave." Crest said. "He does not sound happy."

"Good idea." Reyna said, leading them out the door hastily.

Meg was shaking. She sank to the floor, curling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself. They could still hear the shrieks from inside the temple, but they were becoming less frequent since they left the room.

"Are you okay?" Grey asked her, he'd been doing that a lot to her lately, caring about her even though they barely met.

"Yeah," she assured him. "Just… I never saw him that chaotic since…" she hesitated. "Since he almost went insane in that cave with the honey-bun-loving snakes."

"Honey-bun-loving snakes?" Crst asked. "Right, later."

"Perhaps you could go visit with Tyson and Ella." Lazu offered. "They'll tell you about the prophecy for your quest, and maybe you could make sense of it."

Meg hesitated. It felt like her job here was... unfinished. Like she needed to do something else, but deep down, she knew the real reason she didn't want to leave. This would give her a chance to talk to Apollo again. And not just for a limited time like on the plane, but it would also be like a… revive button that she could use on Apollo. They could work together on how to completely destroy those storming emperors like they used to.

But she couldn't do that without knowing that the side of Apollo that she knew, was gone, never to smile, glare, or look at her again.

"Fine." she said when she noticed that they were waiting on her. "But tell him that if I ever see him alive again, I'll smack him face off. I'm getting tired of having to remind myself that he's dead."

Their smiles looked more like a grimace, but the four Romans nodded and walked into the temple, where the screams were more like pitiful moans.

"Good," she said, nodding after they couldn't hear Apollo anymore, then quite abruptly she turned around and out into the street. Grey and Crest soon followed after, but they soon realized they had no idea of how to get to Tyson and Ella. Luckily, Susan had noticed this and exited the building shortly afterwards, catching up with them before they could get hopelessly lost.

"I've been there a lot lately." she explained, trying to sound calm, but her hands were shaking. Calming the cationic god must have been… interesting to say the least. "I love reading books, and I happen to be quite intelligent."

"Heh," Grey grinned, then bit his lip, looking at her nervously. "So… Susan, right?" he asked. "How long have you been living in New Rome? Did you grow up here or…" he left the question hanging.

"I don't think I actually left the boundaries except to patrol or do my shift." she admitted. "But my mom and dad went out whenever they could, they loved going to this one ice-cream place called Baskin Robbins, but they haven't been able to go out in a while because of the- you know- titan and giant wars and the dang emperors. My mom and dad just feel like there are too many monsters attacking to be able to leave."

"So… You're not a demigod?" Crest concluded.

"Legacy of Mercury and Trivia." she said proudly.

"Who's Trivia?" Meg ased.

"Oh, you're not Roman, right," she thought for a second. "I think that her name's Hecate on your side of the scale.

"Huh." Meg thought over the two names. "What kind of name is _Trivia?"_

**Ok, I'm gonna be frank with you guys. I'm not going to go into the story in New Rome that much. It's basically The Tyrants Tomb, but Grey is Apollo, like I said at the end of Heroes Know When to Sacrifice.**

**Instead, I'm going to go into Asteri's and Grey's story more, catch you up with what's going on with Zeus, and then go to the end of The Tyrant's Tomb with my own little twist at the end.**

**And… hopefully you guys won't hate me for being lazy with Meg's side of the story.**

**So… ya.**

**Stay healthy guys, and I'll be posting the next chapter ASAP.**

**-Jkoo7**


	8. KER

Here's to Carolyn for staying sane enough to write her story even in the face of Corona. This world is crazy guys, just stay safe.

**KER**

**In the extremely distant past.**

**The Sea of Without Water (I really don't know what to call this place guys)**

**Third Person POV**

**Older kids:**

Hyades (daughter of Atlas)/

Dmia (daughter of Oceanus)/

Pallas (son of Krios)/

Asteria (daughter of Koios)/

_Flora (daughter of Oceanus. Name meaning plants and animals)/_

_Agnetha (daughter of Koios. Name meaning good-hearted)/_

_Ariana (daughter of __Epimetheus__. Name meaning woman of peace)/_

_Dirk (Son of Krios. Name meaning powerful ruler.)/_

**Middle kids:**

Hesperides (daughter of Atlas)/

Pleiades (daughter of Atlas)/

Zoë Nightshade (daughter of Atlas)/

Hyas (son of Atlas)/

Perses(son of Krios)/

Ophion (son of Oceanus)/

Astraeus (son of Krios)/

_Soron (son of Atlas)/_

_Aileen (daughter of Hyperion. Name meaning torch of light)/_

_Alessa (daughter of Prometheus. Name meaning protector of humanity)/_

**Younger Kids:**

Lenantos (son of Koios)/

Potamoi (son of Oceanus)/

Maera (daughter of Atlas)/

Calypso (daughter of Atlas)/

_Solar (son of Hyperion)/_

_Agape (daughter of Krois. Name meaning love and affection)/_

_Althea (daughter of Iapetus. Name meaning one who heals)/_

_Pasha (son of Oceanus. Name meaning small and humble)/_

_Dawid (son of Kois. Name meaning Adored)/_

"Tag!" Marea called triumphantly as she hit Solar on the shoulder. Then quickly dashed away, while Solar tried to find out who to go after. He decided to go after his sister, Aileen, who was currently kicking up sand near the surf of the beach. She laughed as her younger brother tried to catch hold of her. She would even slow down enough for him to almost catch her but then dash away. Onlookers laughed at this, but Aileen soon grew distracted when a certain son-of-Krios, Perses, called out encouragement and Solar was able to tag her.

Aileen blushed and took off after Hyas, who had recently been playing pranks on the entire group, but Aileen had received more tricks than others for some reason and seemed intent on revenge. Asteri watched from her seat on their table they had built on the beach and laughed at the children as they played with each other. It had been almost a century and a half since they were "banished" here, but the group had barely matured into adults at all. It was quite strange really, but they were able to finally make peace with the twutoles after a few months and establish a home on an island not too far from Cheezy's home. Pasha said that he would rather live as close as they could to their friend, so there wasn't much that they could do to refuse his request.

They made a temple on the island by melting and molding the white-and-silver Felumety sand to their will. It took many months, but when it was finished, the group enjoyed it immensely. It looked just like their Mount Othrys without the giant thrones and mountain. They called it "Kadir," for it was powerful indeed, and they wanted it to start with a "K" in honor of Kronos, their king. Inside, they had their separate rooms of course. And despite the material technically being glass, it looked and acted like black diamonds instead. Why it turned black was a mystery to them, but it gave off a feeling of security to Asteri's little family.

They had statues dedicated to all of the titans that fought against the gods of course. They had even worked on a small plan to help them in some way, but they weren't able to pull it off until their… gadget was complete.

It was mostly the older kids that worked on it. They had the most powers, so it seemed logical, but that didn't stop the others from helping out. What it did was… extremely complicated to say the least. It was designed as a sort of "Karma-bringer." It was supposed to allow the subject to be afflicted with all the pain, sorrow, or grief that they brought upon anyone else. What it did was a matter of who was being affected. If it was unable to feel physical pain, the device would affect the target's emotions instead. If it was used on something that never caused anyone pain, nothing would happen, so it was mostly all variables.

Originally, Hyades, Agape, Lenantos, and Pleiades thought of making something to take away powers, but that became impossible on account of where to store the powers once captured. It also left questions on if it would take away immortality or strength. They also didn't like the idea of it being used against them, so that idea was too risky.

Then Dirk thought of making a weapon like Kronos' scythe, but they couldn't figure out how to have it stand against the gods' weapons or if they could find a material strong enough to match the might of Gaea's most powerful metals combined, so that idea was also shut down.

They pondered over the idea of calling for primordial or titan help, but Asteri refused to trust anyone that didn't assist Kronos against the gods. Ariana noted that Gaea would probably agree to help them since the Earth goddess didn't seem too fond of the idea of any of her children being imprisoned, so she might not like how Zeus locked the titans away in Tartarus.

"She's the one who put the gods on the throne in the first place!" Asteri argued. "Why would she go through all that trouble just to have them destroyed?"

The group had reluctantly mumbled in agreement, but Dmia spoke up.

"Why can't you fight against the gods?" she had asked. "You might even be stronger than all of them combined! Why can't you go all "warrior princess" on them?"

Asteri sighed but nodded. "I suppose I could attack them myself, but my powers are more of creation, not of destruction, so am able to create things like this." she gestured around her at the sea, twutoles, and land. "But was unable to be of any use to Kronos and the rest of the titans, so if I attacked them now, taking them by surprise, I _might _win. Might even be able to break open the gates of Tartarus and attack the gods with every monster I can find." she paused. "But that would likely kill me. My mind was built with the incapability to do harm to others. Back then, Caos wanted to live in peace, so he tried to make sure that we couldn't do harm. However, we made a mistake when we made the rest of them and… let's just say that it was difficult for the others to _not _do harm." she looked each of them in the eyes. "But I _will _do it. Right now. If you want me to. Give the order, and I'll do it. I might be able to survive if I _create _things that cause harm instead of causing the harm myself. It will be difficult, but I'll do it."

Silence covered the group as they pondered what to do next. Eventually, Zoe spoke up.

"How about that's plan "Z" as a last resort alright?" she spoke hesitantly.

Hesperides nodded "I'm sure we all would rather at least _try to think_ of other ways to take the gods out other than having to lose you."

"I'm sure we can think of other ideas, I mean, there's really no limit to what we can come up with," Calypso added cheerfully. The rest of the group nodded at this except for Flora, who looked deep in thought.

"What is it, Flora?" Pallas asked.

"We know you're thinking of something," Asteria informed her.

Flora blushed. "It was something that Asteri said," she told them. "Of how it's difficult for the other primordials to cause anything but harm for others."

"What about it?" Dawid asked.

"Well, there was this one time I was sitting around at my family's table for dinner and I got up to get a drink, but when I came back, Ophion had taken my seat." she looked pointedly at her half-brother, who blushed.

"I wanted to sit next to my mother!" he protested and the group laughed.

"Well, I tried to explain to him that it was my seat he took." Flora went on, grinning. "But he said "I took your seat Flora, your welcome." and I didn't really know how to respond to it, so I pulled up another chair and ate my dinner."

"Where is this going?" Agnetha said, doing her best to pretend yawning.

Flora flushed, but went on with the story. "Well, it came a time when Orphion had stood up to fetch mashed potatoes and-"

"Mmmmm mashed potatoes." Pleiades licked his lips, thinking of the potato and buttery goodness. "That sounds really good right about now."

"You've said it." Astraeus agreed.

"Great, now you got me wanting some!" Soron complained.

"Oh hush, I'll make some for dinner," Alessa promised them, silencing the boys.

"Thanks," Flora told her and continued. "Well, when he was gone, I took his seat, and when he returned, I said: "Ophion, I took your seat. You're welcome."

"Oof," Aileen said, raising an eyebrow at the red-faced Ophion. "Bet that was embarrassing, huh?"

"Extremely," he admitted.

Althea chuckled and turned to Flora. "Well, this is all well and good making Ophion blush, but what does this have to do with defeating the gods? I doubt that embarrassing them will kick them off the throne."

"Well," Flora said, grinning. "The gods have also caused a _lot _of harm to us and the people we love. So… I was thinking of perhaps making a spell for them to feel the harm they caused us. Maybe it would cause them a lot of pain since they no doubt caused injuries to the titans. Maybe it would help them to understand why they need to step down, and if it doesn't, well… Maybe they might be in so much pain, we can just defeat them right there."

"And if they haven't caused anyone pain?" Pasha asked, patting Cheezy's shell from the twutole's spot on the floor next to Pasha's chair. "What then?"

"Well, that would mean that they are fit to rule," Flora concluded after a time of consideration. "If they never harmed anyone, then that means that they try to help everyone. The world needs rulers like that. Perhaps the entire universe does."

"And what if they regret the pain they've caused?" Zoe asked her. "If they regret it, then they know they have done wrong and are likely trying to change. Or if it was self-defense? They shouldn't be hurt if they were being attacked. I think we should take this into account when creating this… weapon."

"So… we're actually making it?" Lenantos asked. "Just for clarification."

"I mean, it has its ups and downs, but we don't have many other options, so I say we try it," Asteri said.

And so they did. At first, it was supposed to be a spell, but that wouldn't have worked if their group was mixed in with the gods, fighting each other, so they switched to a device that would shoot out a concentrated beam of the "Karma energy" (since they didn't know what else to call it) and began calling the device the "Karma Energy Ray," or KER for short. They had spent three years on it to make sure that everything was perfect for the time they would finally use it. However, it was dangerous at the moment because the twutoles would be attracted to it for some reason for a bit.

It might be because of the strawberry sauce Pallas spilled on it.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Flora shouted at him when the circuits started to spark.

"This shouldn't happen!" Hyades complained. "The sparks only happen when water connects with electricity right?"

"WHO CARES?" Dmia shouted. "Get it off our machine!"

"I'm trying!" Pallas complained, using his fingers to scoop out the sauce, shoving it into his mouth to get rid of it. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry guys, I just wanted to eat my crape and-"

"Shut off the energy!" Flora ordered and Agnetha complied.

"Get that fluffy cream away!" Ariana said and Dirk took a napkin to wipe away the mess.

"That should be it," Asteria said, wiping sweat off her forehead. And turning to Pallas who was taking his own napkin to wipe off the excess strawberry sauce. "What were you _thinking?"_ she asked him. Her voice was frustrated, but not angry.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "Asteri gave me her crape so she could go play Tag with the little kids and I didn't finish it before I got here, but…" he finished cleaning up the drop of sauce. "Did I cause any permanent damage?"

Dmia looked at the wires the strawberry juice hit and sighed with relief. "It shouldn't be that bad Pallas, don't worry, but I just wish you waited until we put the protective covers on the wires before bringing _food _into the room."

"Still don't get why we didn't put covers on the wires _before _we put them in," Hyades grumbled.

"I told you, I didn't think of covers until we started working on the power source," Flora told her, sighing. "I'll do them right now if it makes you happy."

"It would, thank you," Hyades told her, smiling. "Just make sure that the energy is off when you do so."

"One time!" Flora told her. "And there is _no way _I'm going to let it happen again, so hands off the switch Agnetha!" she snapped.

Agnetha, with her hand on the energy switch, blushed and tried to scoot away from it as ninja-like as possible. Dirk barked a laugh and started munching on Pallas' crape that had been set on a table.

"Hey!" Pallas complained. "That's mine!"

Dirk took another bite and wagged a finger at him. "You were careless my friend, you do not deserve such delicious flavors if you can not even hold it right." he demonstrated by cupping his hand below the back-end of the crape to make sure none of the strawberry or whipped cream came out and took another bite.

"Oh calm down Pallas. We'll have them on Friday. You'll only have to wait three more days." Ariana said, holding out three fingers.

Pallas grumbled and stood up. "I'm going to go play Tag with the others, there's not much to do here if we can't use the energy."

"Wait up!" Dirk said once he finished the crape. "Ha! You will be glad I took the crape from you. Weight slows you down. Being slow is unfavorable in this game Tag. You should thank me."

"I'll thank you once you find a way to be so gosh darn fast," Pallas told him and Dirk laughed.

"Those boys are going to be the end of us all," Flora said to the others as the two boys went off to play. "They're right, you guys go, have fun, and I'll work on these covers."

"Alright then. Agnetha said, walking out the door. "Come get us if you need any help."

"I will," Flora promised, "See you guys at dinner. I heard Soron's in charge tonight."

"Hopefully it'll be something better than last time, those eggs were so undercooked, I thought Cheezy was going to throw up right there in front of his date! Ha!" Hyades said, waving as she, Ariana, Asteria, and Dmia walked off to join the game.

Meanwhile, on Olympus.

"Are you sure it's there?" Zeus said, studying his daughter Artemis for any sign of doubt she might have on her claim.

"Positive. No one saw the group leave Mount Othrys before the battle and there's bound to be secret passageways that Asteri knew about. And it's the only lead we have on their whereabouts. We have to at least search for any."

"Fair enough, your hunters will have to spend their time searching instead of hunting though. And if you find how they left, _do not engage. _Fetch me first, and then we'll get rid of this thorn in my side once and for all."


	9. Everyone's Dead, but It's All Good

**Hi everyone! Thought you might want to know what's going on with Apollo at this point, so here ya go!**

**Everyone's Dead, but It's All Good**

"**Present-day"**

**The Island of the Forgotten**

A light popped up right next to Apollo's head and woke him up.

"Hey!" he protested as an arm stopped him from turning over to face away from the light. "What gives?"

"Sorry gancho," the voice said. "You're supposed to help us with breakfast today, and I doubt you could cook in your sleep. Only Toby can do that."

_Zavier _"Gancho? Who are you? Lopen?" Apollo joked, finally opening his eyes to meet the eyes of the man he first saw when popping up in this strange place. Zavier was an energetic man that reminded him of a bunch of comic reliefs smashed into one. Such as Lopen from Stormlight Archive, Hunk from Voltron, Leo Valdez from Heroes of Olympus…

Well, Zavier was a light-brown-skinned man with dark blue eyes and red hair so dark you could mistake it for brown. At the moment, he was wearing a loose light-beige tank top with light blue pants giving him the appearance of a buffer version of Leo with his ripped muscles and chiseled jaw, but he showed no interest in blacksmithing _at all_ when Apollo asked him the day before. Zavier claimed that his place was in the kitchens, which made him even more like Hunk. So, in conclusion, he talked like Lopen, looked like Leo, and acted like Hunk.

"No," Zavier said, sounding a bit embarrassed. "It's me, Zavier, remember? I showed you around."

"Ya, I know," Apollo promised him. "There's a character in a book that said 'gancho' a lot. You just reminded me of him."

"Oh, well, I'll take that as a compliment. You're supposed to help fry the bacon for breakfast today. You better hurry up, people don't like it when there's no bacon for breakfast."

"Cheers to that," Apollo agreed, letting out a groan as he rolled out of bed and stood up to stretch. He was wearing blue PJs with cartoon suns wearing glasses on it. It was quite comfy and cute, but he didn't want to admit he _actually liked_ the childish nightclothes. Artemis would tease him for the rest of-

_Artemis_

He shut down that train of thought and opened the dresser of clothes he had been given. Zavier left the room and Apollo changed into a white shirt and jeans. There was no toga, unfortunately, but the clothes were comfy, so what else do you need?

His room wasn't that bad, it was probably a master-sized one with a medium-sized bed. The kind of bed that when lying down, his feet could touch the bottom of it with his head about 6 inches away from the top. His arms barely needed to reach out to touch the ends, but it wasn't a sleeping bag, so he supposed he shouldn't complain. His room was about the size of a large tent as a rectangle, which he thought already existed, and he knew that the hunter's tents were about the same size, except a bit smaller. Ya, he wasn't very good at describing it, was he? Well, it was around 20 by 25 feet or 6.096 meters by 7.62 meters. The walls were painted with nature-themed murals of deers, bunnies, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and mice. It was quite beautiful really. He wondered who painted it. The restroom was located on the wall opposite of the entrance with a door in place for privacy. It had a wonderful bubble bath, but he didn't want to keep the bacon waiting, so he would have to take one later.

He walked out of the room after brushing his teeth and hair. For some reason, his hair turned blonde when he died. It was kinda weird. It was like he was both Lester _and _Apollo at the same time. I mean, it was less confusing than his Roman form, but still strange to see his godly yellow hair, but also his mortal brown eyes. But that was strange. He had blue eyes as Lester and Apollo, but now it was brown? What was wrong with the world?

"So…" Zavier began, taking him from his thoughts as they walked to the kitchens together. The hallways were painted similar to his room. With animals and nature stuff. Whoever painted the place must have really liked the out-side world being… inside. "How was your day-er-night?

"The bed was really comfy." Apollo told him, "I slept like a… um, cat."

"Cat?" Zavier laughed. "That's a new one. I've heard baby, dog, log, rock, and even a butterfly, but no one's ever said cat. Ha! I figure you're smarter than most of them gancho."

"I was going to say, baby," Apollo confessed. "But they don't really sleep well."

"How true, yes, how true…" Zavier's voice faded off, but then he laughed. "My mother says that I would never sleep if I had the choice. I was a very energized baby if you can tell."

"Really?"

"Oh yes," he said, pointing to a painting of a squirrel on the wall that was curiously wearing a black bushy mustache. "See that? Once I took a paintbrush and put a mustache on each and every animal in this entire building. The rest of the family were working on some project of theirs and I just figured: "Well, why not?" he laughed. "When they got back, they were furious. However, since I was the only child here, they figured it was normal children's behavior. The only punishment I got was a heck of a long scolding and no dessert for a month. They spent over a week getting rid of the mustaches but decided to leave that one on the squirrel as a reminder to never underestimate the power of a child."

It was an interesting story, Apollo thought as he joined Zavier in his laughter, but something felt a little… off about it. He couldn't figure out what though, so he didn't mention it. "You remind me of Hermes," he said. "He took all my cows once, and he escaped punishment by giving me a lyre. It's one of the greatest things I ever owned."

"And this Hermes… is alive?" Zavier asked.

"Ya, he is."

"Well, I would say that I'd like to meet him, but…" he shrugged. "If I ever do meet him, it'll probably be here."

"Heh, funny," They didn't seem to know what to do after that, so they just walked in silence over to the kitchen. Where they were staying was a place that was basically a bunch of cabins almost exactly like in the YMCA Camp Campbell on a giant floating island in the sky called The Island of the Forgotten, but that didn't really apply to him. He wasn't forgotten, that wasn't the reason he died. He got stabbed by an arrow! But… he _did _get forgotten in away. Zeus didn't technically forget him though. He helped the demigods escape from Caligula and Medea, but if Zeus was just going to abandon any ties to Apollo, why did he help? Maybe it was just to help out Jason. Maybe that was it. But thinking about that made him want to throw up. He didn't want to be bitter, but why should Jason be Zeus' favorite son when Apollo was thrown out the window like trash? He almost laughed at how he actually _did _get thrown out the window like trash but just thinking about it absolutely sickened him.

He almost started to cry at the irony of it all, but they arrived at the kitchen and he held the tears back. He _would not _waste anything else for his father. Zeus didn't deserve it. Maybe none of them deserved it. Something snapped within him, but he didn't care if it was a revelation or a bone. All he knew was that he wasn't going to spend any more time one the past.

Just the future. And that was going to start with frying up some bacon.

They walked through the doors of the kitchen and Zavier waved over a man that was mixing up a yellow mixture in a large bowl that Apollo guessed was eggs by the flecks of pepper he could see in it. The man shook some salt in the eggs, washed his hands, and headed over to them.

"Toby, this is Apollo, the new guy," Zavier said, gesturing to him. "He's going to do the bacon for today, but I need to get started on the orange juice. You two have fun." he walked off, leaving them alone.

'Toby' was a man that was really rather small, but looked as friendly and open like a little girl. He had dark skin with ruffled hair on his head. He had a wide grin and purple eyes. He had a pair of glasses tucked into his orange shirt pocket and flour stains dusted his jeans.

"Nice to meet you Apollo, I'm Toby," he said, taking hold of Apollo's hand and shaking it. Despite his weak figure, his grip was surprisingly strong. "Haven't got a 'new guy' since the satyr. I hope you've heard of him. Real swell guy if I do say so myself. The hoves are a bit weird, but he sure knows how to run. Ha! Even came close to almost beating Steven." his voice was high, but also low at the same time with some sort of Latino accent to it.

"Pan?" Apollo felt guilty. He hadn't even asked about his nephew yet. "How is he?"

"Well, we had to put him in shape when he first arrived, but he's doing quite well. Even got him to change back into a younger version. Couldn't have felt that well in that old man suit, but it wasn't really a 'man,' was he? Ha!" Toby smiled. "I'm sure you can catch up together at breakfast, but there won't be breakfast if we don't have bacon." he let go of Apollo's hand and led them into the kitchen area to a place filled with flat grills. "Here, all you gotta do is put the strips on the grills and flip the pieces after a few minutes. You have to be careful of flying grease though, the drainer should get rid of most of it, but some of the darn things still fly at you like ants."

"Like… ants?" Apollo asked, putting on the apron that Toby handed him.

"Ya," Toby said, "Like ants. Their bites sting for a bit then they stop. Know anything about metaphors?"

"Ya, I do actually," Apollo said, feeling a bit defensive. "But metaphors are only useful if people can understand them without you having to explain it."

Toby raised an eyebrow. "Well, then it's the people's fault for not understanding it."

"Well, metaphors are like jokes," Apollo said. "You could tell the greatest one in history, but if no one understood it, it would be useless."

"Not true," Toby argued, opening a cooler by the grill and pulling out a pack of bacon and opening it. "If no one understood it, the person that made the joke wouldn't have got it. And how could it be 'the greatest joke in history' if it never made anyone laugh?"

"Well," Apollo began, helping Toby place the bacon strips on the grill. "That's the point, isn't it? If no one understood a metaphor that _would've _been the greatest one in history, then it's not the greatest at all."

"Maybe not to others," Toby continued, opening another pack of bacon. "But to the one that made the metaphor. The one that understood it, _that _would be the greatest metaphor in history."

"Well… um," Apollo stuttered, not quite knowing what to say to that. "If he was the only one who understood it, then it would be forgotten by the world. It would fade away, and no one would find the brilliance of what could have been if they understood it."

"But if the metaphor made the man happy, then it was not useless after all."

Apollo went silent.

Toby grinned at him, who had begun to open another pack of bacon. "Not many people have gone toe-to-toe with me in a debate and stood as long as you have. I don't know if that makes you very stupid, or very smart."

"Well," Apollo began, thinking hard. "It's like… um, it's like having a cookie, but never eating it."

Toby laughed. "And how is that?"

"Well," he started, "If I never have a debate with you, then I leave the cookie alone, never having the joy of it. But if I eat the cookie, then I have a pleasant experience followed by the disappointment of not winning, or not having the cookie any longer."

"That didn't make much sense my friend," Toby said, putting the last strip of bacon that they could fit on the grill. "But if it made sense to you, then it was good enough, eh?"

"I guess so," Apollo said, walking up to the sink to wash his hands and get all the grease off. "Why haven't people gone toe-to-toe with you in a debate before?"

"Used to be the god of debate," Toby explained. "My name used to be Diman, but I decided to change. It just didn't feel right to keep the name if I didn't keep the job. Most guys around here did that. It's like we just want to forget about our past life. Rebecca used to be Tafita, goddess of food. Steven used to be Tykalla, the god of speed until that up-start Hermes took the title away from him. Guess it's fitting. He's the god of thieves, but there's no way that Steve could beat Hermes. It was basically a silent race between the two of them too who could go faster. Steve didn't stand a chance when Zeus gave him those wined sandals. Then people just… forgot about us." his voice turned sad and quiet, so Apollo decided it was time to change topics.

"So… how do you turn on the grill?" he asked, drying his hands on a towel.

"The black switch near the fridge," Toby told him, shaking his hands to get rid of the water. " the tongs are hanging from the hooks over there." he pointed to a cluster of hooks holding up tools. "I'm in the other room if you need anything. Those eggs aren't going to cook themselves." he gave a wide smile and waved as he left the room.

Apollo got set to work, turning on the grill and watching with his tongs ready for when they turned brown. He wondered if he should consider a name change.

_No reason to rush on this. _A voice said to him. _You don't have to change anything. You're still you, and that's all that really matters, right?_

Maybe, but at the moment, he didn't want anything to do with his past life. His family betrayed him. But… it was really only Zeus. He was so confused. He didn't want to think about that right now.

_One problem at a time. One decision at a time._

And now, he was helping with bacon.

_**I realize that this is a shorter chapter, but I decided that maybe shorter chapters more often would be best for my style of writing.**_

_**How did you like the new characters? I don't know if I did that well with the debating, but I did my best.**_

_**There's something that I hinted at with Zavier. Did you catch it? It's not that important if you didn't, but I thought it was pretty cool.**_

_**Have a good week guys, and as always, keep smiling, there's always good in the world if you look for it.**_

_**-Jkoo7**_


	10. Insert Alliteration

_**Hey guys, I'm coming in with another Apollo chapter. I hope I'm able to personalize Pan in the way you picture him. Also, I think this is called an Alliteration, please correct me if I'm wrong.**_

**Pan plates pancakes on a pan and pecks at pickles and pizza pickings for post-picnic pecking**

**(not all of this will happen, sorry)**

**Apollo's POV**

'**Present-day'**

Sweat beaded on Apollo's forehead as he put the rest of the bacon strips into the chosen container. The room had heated up quite measurably and he was quite glad to turn off the heat of the large grill. He walked over to the sink and washed his hands. He splashed water onto his face and then dried them on a towel nearby. He had a bit of struggle untying his apron, but after a full six minutes of effort, he managed to escape.

It had taken almost an hour to cook all the bacon, and in that time, there had been close to fifteen packs he had used. He wondered how many immortals had been… sent here, and how many of them had him pay a part in their deaths. He wondered if he had any immediate enemies that he had yet to meet, but he couldn't recall any gods he could have sent here. He supposed that he would know soon. Breakfast was going to start in fifteen minutes or so, and he heard voices in the dining area.

He wondered throughout the bacon's cooking on how he should approach his nephew, Pan, and how the satyr would react to him arriving here. It had been so long since the two of them had spoken. What would he say? What would Pan say? Would they fight? Hug? Dance? What did Toby mean by "got him to change back into a younger version?" Would he be a young adult? Baby? He figured the former was more likely.

Apollo picked up the trays of bacon after hanging up his apron and walked out the door. He saw Toby over by the utensils, directing some other figures on what they would do. Most of them were wearing gloves, and he supposed that they would be the ones serving the food. Toby spotted him, smiled, and walked over. When he arrived, he looked down at the bacon trays and raised an eyebrow at a few that were a bit more crispy than the others. Very much so in fact.

Apollo blushed, those had been some of the first ones he had fried. The grill had been a bit more heated than he had expected. He had just barely saved them from the terrible fate of being inedible in time. He looked at Toby with a sheepish face, but Toby only nodded.

"Fine work you've done with that, almost perfect. I might have you do bacon for the rest of your kitchen shifts, but you might need some other experience to do instead, you know, to get your skilly skills in shape. Can't have you getting good at only one thing, if that was the case, then you'd probably be useless if something happened to the piggos."

"Piggos?"Apollo said, putting the trays in a place between the fruit and egg trays.

"Yeah, I call them piggos, do you have a problem with that?" Toby grinned. "I'll have to show you them after breakfast, it's incredible really. Flora made this awesome tool that lets us collect the bacon without killing them. Of course, it takes an hour to do it, but It breaks out hearts to have them around just for them to suffer the fate of a sword coming down on them."

"You can do that? It doesn't sound scientifically possible."

"Well, beings that live forever, but sometimes die doesn't sound very logical either."  
"Fair enough." Apollo agreed.

"Well, someone else in on serving duty, why don't you find a table to sit at? Zavier sits near the front of the room with Chiara and their kids. But if you want to find Pan, I think he sits near the entrance at the blue table, but I think that he might be serving the pancakes today."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but he usually arrives seconds before breakfast starts, so you won't have a lot of time to talk."

"Oh, well, I guess I'll sit with Zavier. Thanks." He would have to meet up with Pan some other time. Apollo bid farewell to Toby and walked over to the front of the room. He drew some stares from the people around, and a group of immortals walked up to him.

It was a group of three, with two boys and a girl. The boys were identical. With brown eyes, blond hair, and pale skin. Their hair was short with red accents on the tips of one of them, and blue accents on the tips of the other.

"Hi there, I'm Ben, my brother's Sammy, and this beautiful lady here is Ariana." The red-tipped twin said, holding out a hand for Apollo to shake. "If you can't tell, Sammy and I are twins."

"Really?" Apollo asked, shaking Ben's hand. "I'm Apollo."

"Apollo? Really?" Ben asked, eyes widening. "Well, um," he seemed unsure of what to say next. "I'm sorry you, um, died." he winced as if he expected Apollo to yell at him, but Apollo just laughed.

"Why thank you, my friend, I like your red and blue accents. Let me guess, you're the evil twin?"

Sammy laughed from behind Ben, "Actually, that's me." he said, pulling out a white dagger from his sleeve. "We were attacked by a drakon on our eleventh birthday. Ben thought we could tame the sticking beast after we trapped it in a cave, but when he tried to feed it a hamburger, it almost bit his arm off! Luckily, I shot it in the teeth like twenty-five times before nailing it in the eyeball. This popped up in the pile of glitter."

"You shot it in the teeth?"

"Well, yeah, it seemed to hurt him a bunch, so I just kept shooting until I could get a clear shot at his eye."

"So you're a skilled archer?" Apollo asked.

The two twins exchanged a look like they were having telepathic communication. "Actually, I suck at the bow," Sammy admitted. "We used a gun loaded with bronze bullets that we got from camp."

"What? But, celestial guns are new-" but a fact stopped him in his tracks. "Did you say _camp?_"

The twins shuffled their feet. "Well, the thing is Apollo," Ben started.

"We're not… immortals. We're demigods." Sammy finished.

"But… this is a place for fallen immortals." Apollo argued. "How did you even get here?" questions swept through his head, but one stuck out. _Are there more of them here?_

"I think I can answer that." a voice sounded behind the twins. Ariana had finally spoken for the first time. She was a brunet, with black eyes and tan skin. She was short, no taller than six feet, but he made no mistake of assuming that she was weak. There was something in her eyes that made her feel… Ancient. But she was unlikely older than his father, right?

"These two had been helpful to us for gaining knowledge of the 'modern world.'" Ariana informed him. "They also helped us test out a way for us to not only take immortals from the grasp of death but also any that have even the smallest of deity blood. Of course, these people will have a choice to either come or stay, but we are trying to help the ones that wish to have a better place for the after-death life."

"You're trying to make another underworld?" Apollo asked. "Do you have _any _idea of how long that's going to take?"

"Actually our plan is set to take place in two days' time," she noted. "It shouldn't take more than five days. It's a yes or no answer. We're going to sort through the Fields of Arosophel first, then after that, it should be relatively easy."

"But-" he stuttered. "How do you intend to ask them?"

"The same way we got you to appear to your family for a short time," she said immediately. "You see Apollo, the underworld has limited space, and it's been getting even more crowded over the years. Not only this, but good people are being sent to the Fields of Arostophel, just because they didn't die a heroic death, or lived a very exciting life. We want to help those people."

"Because No One Deserves to Be Forgotten?" he said, grinning at the reference to the new musical.

"Exactly!" Ariana exclaimed, grinning. "Thank goodness, most gods here wouldn't even think of helping these people. This makes my job so much easier! Um…" she hesitated. "If you are willing to help, that is."

"With what?" he asked, but before she could answer, a woman at the front of the stage rang a bell, signaling the five minutes until the meal started. He hadn't noticed how full the room was getting. There were almost no seats left, but he saw Zavier waving at him and patting on the empty seat to his left. On his right, there was a gorgeous woman smiling at him with a small child sitting on her lap. She was a brunet, with purple eyes and light skin and her smile filled his heart with joy. _Not again _he thought to himself.

"We'll have to talk about it later." Ariana told him, "Have a good meal!" and with that, the group walked away, leaving him to make his way over to Zavier's seat.

"So glad you could find us gancho!" Zavier told him when Apollo sat down. He reached over and squeezed the hand of the woman sitting next to him. "Allow me to introduce you to the love of my life. Apollo, this is Chiara, Chiara, this is Apollo."

"A pleasure to meet you." she smiled at Apollo again and then waved the child's hand. "And this is Saluno," she pronounced his name Sal-u-no. "Our newest child. His brothers and sisters should be here soon, I think they said something about passing out the dishes?" she looked around the room, then pointed to a somewhat large group of children moving around the room, carrying stacks of plates, spoons, knives, and forks.

"So… how many children do you have?" Apollo asked them, but then followed up with another question. "Wait, are these born _dead?"_

Zavier laughed. "Not technically, my friend, but it certainly seems like it doesn't it? But I would advise you not to think about it too much, it's a bit of a paradox."

"So, were you born here?" Apollo asked Zavier.

"I was actually the first child born here." he told him, "That's why my name's Zavier see? It means 'New Home.' Mother and father decided it would be fitting, and it is a very fine name." _That's _what bothered him about Zavier's mustache story. It was about Zavier's childhood, and Apollo hadn't known about births here yet.

"And to answer your first question," Chiara said, giving him another one of those smiles that made him want to smile back. "We have 31 children, with the oldest being 21 next month, all as wonderful as they can be."

"Unless they're messing with my pottery supplies," Zavier grumbled.

"Absolutely wonderful!" Chiara insisted and Zavier laughed and pulled her in to plant a kiss on her cheek.

"_You're _wonderful," he told her, and Apollo felt a tang of jealousy at their relationship.

The bell sounded again and Apollo recognized the pitch0black hair and skin so pale it could have belonged to a ghost. If, you know, ghosts had skin. The girl walked up to the front of the stage and the room fell silent except for Zavier and Chiara's children making their way to their parents' table as quickly as they could, but it wasn't very quiet, to say the least, especially when they pulled out their chairs to sit on them, and when they were finished, a few immortals from around the room laughed, but nothing mocking, just a fondness, and a touch of humor.

The woman at the front of the room smiled at the children, but there was always something _wrong _with her smile. Like she was a cracked glass that was just waiting for someone to push her out the window, or, 'yeet' her out of it. Whatever _that _meant.

"Good morning everyone." Asteri began, and Apollo felt a familiar chill down his spine. Something was just so… _wrong_ about the so-claimed- creator of this place. "I would like to announce a new member of our family, so could give a warm welcome to Apollo!" There were some immortals gasping in shock throughout the room at first, but then they erupted into somewhat too enthusiastic applause.

"Welcome Lord Apollo!" a young-looking boy sitting on a table close to him said. "God of Archery and… Music right? I'm the god of books, the greek one to be precise, the name's Vivli."

"Um, nice to meet you too," Apollo said to him but then turned his gaze back to the front of the room.

"Don't worry about everyone trying to say hi to you at once," Zavier whispered to him as Asteri went on with the morning announcements. Apparently, they have a plant growing competition at 9, an art show at 10, a maze run at 11, a rapping battle at 12, and so forth. How they knew what that was were beyond Apollo's knowledge of this place, but it might be interesting to watch it. "It's going to happen a lot over the next few days, but we're just trying to make a tight family here."

"But what if someone here has a grudge against me?" Apollo asked, casting a wary glance around the room for any hostile faces, he found none, but that didn't stop his anxious feeling. And what Zavier said next only made it more apparent.

"Oh, there's _definitely _someone here that has beef with you. Especially since you're part of the Olympian Council. But don't worry, this place is about redemption and forgiveness… And, you know, making sure that immortals don't get turned into nothing."

"Really? I thought this place was made as like, the Elysium for immortals, like, the good go here, and the bad go to Tartarus."

Zavier raised his eyebrow and thought for a moment. "Well, no, actually," he said. "The story I've heard is that Asteri was about to fade away, and realized that that would be it for her, one moment she would be there, and the next… Poof! She would be gone! And, well, as most people would be, she was scared, but also knew this was what would happen to other immortals, so it would be unfair if she didn't go when others just like her would be no more. So, she decided to stop it, and just before she faded, and saw a glimpse of absolute nothing, she made this place with the last of her power."

"Really? She did that?" Was _that_ why she looks so strange? She must have gone insane without her power and the memory of death staring her in the face, but then only holding on because she didn't want anyone else to go through the same thing.

"Yeah!" he then paused for a moment. "Well, that's what mom told me, but something doesn't make sense."

"What? It sounds pretty legit to me."

"If she was that powerful, then what made her fade in the first place? I doubt that mortals would remember such an ancient being such as Caos, but not someone as kind as Asteri. It just doesn't make sense."

"Huh," Apollo hadn't thought of that. Not even Zeus had spoken of anything about this place, which was why Apollo was so shocked to find that he had actually not, as Zavier put it, "Poofed." Had Pan known of this? Maybe this was why he had been so calm about fading. But why hadn't he gotten word to them? _Well, _Apollo answered himself. _Maybe he didn't actually know about this place, and he actually _was _ready to go_

"Well…"Apollo began, thinking of another possibility. "Maybe she isn't as kind as you thought?"

"No… that's not it. She once told me of a gift she gave to humanity, and I doubt they would have forgotten it without Zeus' help."

"What was the gift?" Apollo asked him, curious.

"Well, she started off the process of putting constellations in the sky after there wasn't Uranus there to show off his. There was a Titan named Astraeus, and Asteri surrendered the title of goddess of the stars to him, except, you know, making him the god of the stars. She celebrated her grandchild's new title with his own constellation, The Fall of the Sky, saying that she wouldn't give him the title of something non-existent. And according to some of the newcomers, the gods copied off her example, but the infuriating part of it all was that they-I don't know how- tore down the constellations that she spent so much time on, and replaced it with their own."

Apollo shuffled his feet, uneasy about these new revelations about what his father had done to the question he was left wondering was… _why?_ "What did Asteri ever do to him?" he asked out loud when Asteri finally dismissed them to pick up their breakfast. "I'm sure my father would never do all that to someone who had done nothing to him."

"I know as much as you do gancho," Zavier told him. "And I've been here since the beginning! I've asked all these questions to my mother, my father, my aunts and uncles, even Asteri herself! They always find a way to dodge the question. Once even getting me to play a game of actual Dodge Ball." he chuckled at this, then frowned. "Eventually, then told me that to talk about it, it would mean a lot of trouble for Asteri, so I should stop asking about the details, so I had to quit."

"Really? Weird."

"Yeah, but I've been doing some undercover work in the library. I found this one book about these creatures I've never heard about last week. They look freaking awesome with all their different colors. I'll have to show you a picture of one sometime. They're called twutoles."

"Twutoles?"

"Yep, twutoles."

"Well, there are a lot of creatures in the world, I'm sure that I've seen them-"

"No! That's the thing! Not even Pan says he's seen them! And he's the god of the wild! But there's this one statue in a garden on the far side of the town of the creature, so it must've been important. But since there's none here, that means that they still exist!"

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, Pan freaked out when he saw all his buddies again. I'll show you to the dino area if you want, but it's kinda a madhouse in there."

"I hate to keep you waiting any longer." Asteri cut in. "So feel free to head over to the breakfast line, and have a wonderful day."

The room erupted into murmurs as everyone set out in a single file line And, surprisingly, it went by faster then he thought possible. Soon, he had grabbed his fruit, bacon, and eggs, and was heading over to the pancake station when he saw Pan.

Apollo barely recognized him, but he saw that tan and horns and couldn't believe that this used to be that old, wrinkly figure that had to watch as his precious forests were destroyed. Apollo frantically searched for the words to say to his nephew, but before he could, he was at the front of the line and the satyr was right in front of him.

The god of the wild scooped up two pancakes without looking up, but when he did, the pancakes dropped from his tongues.

"Apollo?" It was barely a whisper and Apollo barely saved his plate when Pan leaped over the table like a kangaroo and wrapped him into a suffocating bearhug.

"Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You're _here. _You're really here!" Pan was shaking as he hung onto Apollo's neck and it took Apollo a moment to register the fact that the god was _crying_. And Apollo wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. "They said that there was a surprise coming today, but I thought it was just going to be a breakfast treat or something!" he paused and pulled back, wiping his eyes. "Wait, did they kill you just to get you over here?"

The gods in line laughed and the two blushed in embarrassment. "No! Of course not!" Apollo assured him, rubbing the scar from the wound that killed him. "I- um, was punished for the Second Giant War by being turned into a mortal again. I was tasked with helping out the 5 oracles, but I was wounded when escaping from Caligula, and I… died." Apollo's stomach churned at the fact that _he _was the cause of his death. But it wasn't that he wanted to lie to Pan about that, he was just… he didn't quite know how to explain it. I mean, how would you feel if you caused your own death and had to tell all your underworld buddies about it?

"Wait." Pan paused Apollo's train of thought. "_You _were blamed for the giants? What the heck is wrong with Zeus? Is he blind?" Pan threw up his arms in frustration and shook his fist at the sky. "How are you more worthy of the crown than Kronos again?" Then, seemingly remembering that Zeus couldn't hear him, blushed and cleared his throat. "Well, um, we'll have to catch up at breakfast. I- uh, gotta plate these pancakes if you don't mind." Then he headed behind the counter and dished out the pancakes to the people in line.

"Common Apollo," Apollo heard Zavier behind him and his friend pulled him gently away. "It is time to feast! Pan will join us later."

"Actually, I need to speak with Apollo my dear," Apollo turned to meet the face of Ariana, and behind her, there was none other than Asteri herself. However, she didn't have the warm 'smile' she gave him when she first welcomed him into her world. Instead, her face had a sort of rushed desperation to it.

"You are free to eat on the way, but we must hurry," she told him. "But the fate of New Rome depends on it, and I fear that we might not have much time."

_**Well, um, so that happened. I hope you liked it, and I'll post the next chapter ASAP.**_


	11. Being Overthrown Sucks

_**Ok, I'm trying to get inside Zeus' head and write what I think he would think. But I want you to know this, I hate him. But Zeus sure doesn't hate Zeus, so I can't express how much I absolutely LOATHE him in this chapter. So, I won't say here, but I put as much as I could fit into my profile… description? (I think that's what it's called?) But I still have a bunch more to say about him, so… if you want me to write a chapter about everything I can find that's wrong about him, let me know because I want to, but I really don't want to do it if that's not what you want.**_

**Being Overthrown Sucks**

"**Present-day"**

**Canada**

**Zeus' POV**

Zeus hated being weak. Granted, it didn't normally happen, but when it did, he hated the feeling. Distantly, he wondered if this was what it felt like to Apollo when he became mortal, but he dismissed the thought.

Despite his present weakness, he wasn't dumb. He knew about the prophecy that said that if Jiper helped the sun god, one of them would die. And one person in the group _did _die. Apollo, but that wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He didn't like the thought of Jason dying, but Apollo surviving, but that was what was supposed to happen. And since, for some reason, it didn't happen, that meant that someone was tampering with fate, and he didn't like it one bit.

There was supposedly no way to escape the path that the fates had set out for you. Countless people had tried and failed. So how had Jason, (however pleasant the surprise had made him) survived, and cheated death without even trying? The thought perplexed him an unnerving amount. The Fates were his children, though that weirdo Nyx claimed otherwise, and likely because of this, they were probably the most powerful beings alive, and it weirded him out that their plan for the future was stopped for some unknown reason.

He was still a bit shaken from their… visit. The same minute that his disappointment of a son died, they had poofed into his throne room and demanded that he stop interfering with their will. He told them that he didn't do anything, and luckily, they believed him. Or… so he believed.

Speaking of luck… "Are you sure this is the right way?" he asked the demigod. They had found her at the Canadian border, and personally, he thought that Tyche/Fortuna had sent her daughter as a sort of 'good luck with getting your throne back, I'd join you if I could, but I don't want the others to get angry, so he's my young adult demigod child to help you out.' gift, despite what the kid said.

"No, I'm not sure if it's the right way!" the girl snapped at him and he felt his anger flare. "You won't ever tell me _where _we're supposed to be going!"

"Watch yourself kid," Ares warned and grabbed her shoulder. "That's the king of the universe you're talking to, and it won't matter if you're helping us or not if you don't learn _respect_." Zeus saw the girl wince as the war god squeezed harder. "The last guy who didn't respect me was a punk and ruined my plans for a fun year, and the only reason I went easy on him was that he was a kid, you have no such protection." he threatened after one final squeeze.

"That doesn't really work since you just barely called her 'kid.'" Athena informed him.

Aries glared at her. "She is a 'kid' compared to us, but also an adult, who should know better than to sass her betters." he looked at the demigod who was currently rubbing her shoulder, which would likely have a bruise the next morning, but she should've thought twice before snapping at him. Maybe he just needed a punchbag to hurt when _some _other enemies are out of the question, or maybe he needed a way to let his allies prove themselves to him, but whenever something like this happened, he didn't feel the need to lift a finger to help the girl.

You might be wondering why Ares hated the girl so much. Well, when they first met, the god had got… a bit too close to her for her own liking, so she told him to back off. Ares, liking a challenge, only got close to her, and she drew her knife and asked once again, but the god only got closer and she… stabbed him in the side side of the hip. The god had obviously recovered, but his pride was wounded and took every chance he could to get back at the girl who had denied him.

It really was a shame though, Lucky really was beautiful. Feisty, but beautiful. And now that Hera was officially through with the two of them, and that cursed prophecy had been fulfilled by that cursed fish-spawn brat Perseus, the vow that he and his back-stabbing brothers had made was unnecessary, there was almost no reason why he hadn't called her into his tent sooner, except the fact that Tyche had made him swear on Styx not to touch her in any way without her permission, so there's that.

"Look, we just need to get to a Labyrinth entrance, and then we'll be able to go anywhere we need to. Preferably New Rome." Demeter told Lucky, and Zeus couldn't help but note how casually she led her away from Ares. "Now that there are some… open spots in the Olympian Council at the moment, we could strike a deal with the Trumative. They lend us an army, we take back Olympus, they get godhood. Everybody wins!"

"What an idiotic idea," Athena said. "The Emperors will only agree to that if they become the new leaders of the council, something that rightfully belongs to Zeus."

"Well, we could offer them that deal, or the option of them being blown to smithereens!" Persephone suggested. "You seem to forget that we are _gods _and the Trumative may have immortality, but that won't stop us if we… take it away." she gained an evil glint in her eye. "They got their divinity by people worshiping them. Well, they don't anymore, but if we take down each and every last monument they have, it shouldn't be too hard to tear them limb from limb."

The immortals stared at Persephone, shocked at what she just said. Ares was grinning at the goddess, however, while Demeter had wide-eyes and was trembling.

"Tear them… limb from limb?" she finally asked her daughter and the girl seemed to finally register what she had just said.

"Well, um, unless you think there's a better way to kill them?" she looked around, but everyone seemed to have frozen in place, and did not say anything. "Well, um, I guess we'll have to find the Labyrinth first." They headed out again, with Lucky leading the way, who obviously had no idea where to go until they happened upon a pile of stones with a very familiar symbol on it.

"There it is!" Zeus rushed over to it and tapped on the Delta symbol. The rocks crumbled away to reveal the entrance. He went to rush into it, but a hand took hold of his shoulder and held him back.

"Woah there, we need a plan on how to navigate this thing," Athena told him.

Zeus yanked himself out of her hand. "Then what's your idea?" When she was silent, he scoffed and marched into the maze, his group following behind him. "Ok, all we need to do is get to New Rome, it should be easy enough," he said, but immediately after he said the words out loud, a hissing sound came from the tunnel in front of them. He was immortal, so he didn't start running, in fact, this might actually be good for them, showing his allies that he would not back down from a fight would help secure their alliance.

"What are you doing here Zeusssss?" the serpent-like voice asked from the shadows. "We haven't attacked any human or intelligent being in yearsss, so I doubt you have come for ussss." a higher-pitched voice noted. "However, if you have come to talk about the chickensssss then I would say in my defenssse that it is hard for a snake to go on for long without eating ssssomething."

"Amphisbaena? What are you doing here?" Persephone asked them. "I thought you went back to Greece. Wait-" she looked around. "Are we in Asia now?"

The two-sided snake slithered out of the shadows and Zeus finally could see how large the creature was. The creature was a large snake with two fronts. The Amphisbaena's width touched the sides of the tunnel as it came toward them. It had chicken feet and feathered wings, which always confused him. "Persssephone." the beast's front head greated her. "How nice to see you again." she looked at the other immortals and rested its gaze on Lucky, who was trembling in fear of the snake. "I ssssee you have brought me a demigod. Is it a criminal to kill or a hero ssssent to ssslay?" it curled in on itself so that the other end could stare at them and the two heads narrowed their eyes. "Well, if you have come to fight, we will give you one."

"Amphisbaena, we have not come to fight," Zeus told them. "In fact, we didn't even know you were in here."

The snake looked at them, suspicious. "Then why are you here? Lossst?" the heads chuckled. "Look, the mighty King of the gods is _lost_." the best stopped laughing. "But if you wanted to go to Greece, I can find you the exit."

"We're not trying to get to Greece either," Athena told her. "We're trying to get to San Francisco if you'll believe it. You see, Emperor Caligula and-"

"Ah, yessss, the immortal emperorssss. Quite formidable opponents for one demigod, which I supposssse you're here to help her defeat them."

"We're not going to defeat them, we're here to join them." Ares informed her and the snake's eyes widened.

"A great betrayal against New Rome. I will not allow it." the beast hissed at them and the gods exchanged a confused look.

"But… you're a monster, you're not supposed to like demigods, you're supposed to kill them." Demeter told the creature like she was informing a child to do their homework. The Amphisbaena tilted its heads, confused.

"So… you want me to attack demigods? I thought that's what gets monsters in trouble!" the two heads hissed, but then stopped. "Look, we just want to raise our children in peace, away from the Greek world, could you pleasse go? We promissse we'll teach them to only kill to ssssurvive."

"Wait, what?" Athena studied the beast. "So, you're living in _The Labyrinth_ because… you want to be away from the greeks? You realize that you are part of the greek world right?"

The monster seemed to look embarrassed and spoke. "I know it's weird, but we just don't want our children to have to experience going through… _there."_ they sighed, no doubt referring to Tartarus. "It's been a rough couple of weeks with the labyrinth bursting up in flame at random times, but I heard that it stopped because a group of demigods killed that witch Medea, and… if you're trying to side with the group that's trying to hurt the ones that saved us, then I cannot allow you to continue."

"But we still need to get to San Francisco. I promise, we have a plan that won't endanger demigod lives. We plan to make a deal with the Trumative. They help us take back Olympus, and in return, we'll give them spots in the Council to replace the traitors." Athena informed her.

"Wait, traitors? What's happened on Olympus?"

"The other gods have betrayed Zeus." Demeter told her. "So far, only we have been loyal to our king."

"Betrayed? Wait, hold up, something must have set them off. What happened?" Zeus' allies looked down at their feet and Zeus spoke up.

"They didn't like how I handled a punishment. Apollo helped Gaea rise and I made him mortal, however, on a quest, something went wrong and he was killed."

The Amphisbaena tilted its heads again. "You made him mortal again? You really need to be more creative in your punishmentssss. No wonder Hadessss is better at ruling the dead than you could ever be." the right side laughed.

Zeus rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, sure, we can talk about how unoriginal I can be, or we can get moving. So are you going to help us or not?"

The snake thought for a second then hissed at them. "I don't have that much of a choice, do I? If I refuseeee, you'll just turn me into glitter won't you?" the left side asked.

"Well, that's not exactly how I would put it, but sure!" Ares said enthusiastically, brandishing his sword.

They hissed again and glared at the group. Their eyes' lingered on Lucky once more and something changed in their expression. "Very well, but the demigod stays with me. Think of it assssss… a token of assurance that you'll make good on your deal."

"Deal." the immortals said without hesitation. Sure, the demigod helped them get here, and it was a bit harsh, but Lucky could survive a few days with the Amphisbaena until they could sort everything out on the surface and return for her. It wasn't as if they were _abandoning _the girl, just temporarily leaving her behind.

"_What?!" _Lucky snapped out of her trance and stumbled away, but Ares grabbed her injured shoulder before she could get away and she yelped in pain. The war god pinned her arms behind her back, summoned a long metal wire and secured it around the girl's wrists. "Hey! Stop! Let me go!" she protested and tried to break free, but Ares had already spelled the shackles and the manacles just tightened and dug into her skin. Tears pricked at her eyes at the pain but she kept struggling. "_Please,_" she begged, voice shaking as Ares pulled her by her already bleeding wrists toward the ginormous beast. "Don't-"

"Quiet." Ares demanded, snapping his fingers and a gag appeared around her head and the girl's pleas were muffled by the tight fiber. The girl was breathing heavily and her entire body was trembling but still she fought uselessly against her bonds. Suddenly, her movement grew sluggish and the immortals saw her body go limp. Ares had probably put some sort of sedative in the gag and it had soon worked its magic.

"Come on Ares, wasn't all that a bit unnecessary?" Athena asked him, raising an eyebrow at the blood trail coming from the unconscious girl's hands.

"I'd like to see you do better." he countered and followed the snake leading them deeper into the maze. The back head narrowed its eyes at the war god disdainfully as if concerned about the state of its soon to be prisoner, but said nothing.

"You could at least carry her." Persephone suggested. "Then it might be easier on her skin, with you dragging her by the wire." Ares scowled at her, but obliged, tossing the limp body over his shoulder like a towel. They walked for quite some time before they heard tiny hissing coming from up ahead. They then caught sight of 7 mini amphisbaenians and knew that they had arrived.

"How did you know how to return to them?" Demeter asked the mothers, sitting down on a rock.

"Their hissing." she explained. "As long as they make noise, we can always find my way back to our children."

"Where would you like me to put her?" Ares asked, dropping Lucky down on the hard rock floor.

Amphisbaena glared at him and yerked her head to the corner of the room opposite to their leaf nest. "That should be fine, but be gentle with her, I don't want my children getting thirsty for blood if they happen to lick up the drops you spilled everywhere."

"Calm down, they're going to be eating animals their entire life," Ares told her. "What makes mortal blood any different?"

"Well, for one, the amount of red blood cells-" Athena began.

"It was a rhetorical question daughter." Zeus told her, sitting down and rubbing his forehead. Lately, he has been having headaches. Likely Metis' own way of rebellion against him. Athena scowled at him, annoyed that she didn't get to finish.

Ares, despite the Amphisbaena's request, once again dragged Lucky by the wire restricting her arm and yanked her into the corner. The girl stirred, as if trying to wake up, but it was almost impossible with the sedative keeping her asleep. This did not go unnoticed by Ares. The war god snapped his fingers again and a flipping _cage _appeared out of nowhere with a chair inside it. He snapped his fingers and more wires appeared. He dragged her into the cage, plopped her onto the chair, used the wires to tie her arms and feet to it, and dusted off his hands as if to say: 'There, job's done.' and walked up to Amphisbaena.

"Ok, you got your toy, now take us to San Francisco."

"Of courssse God of War, jussst one moment." she slithered over to her children and nudged them into their nest. Then, pulling a lever, a metal wall surrounded the bed, blocking the baby snakes in. "I'll be back sssoon my dearssss." she promised them and started to slither away, beckoning the immortals with the back head to follow. The other gods followed quickly to catch up with her, but only Athena cast one last look at the slumped bleeding figure in the corner.

"We'll be back, I promise." she reassured her, words reaching Lucky's deaf ears. "You'll be fine." she then said, almost to herself. Then with that, she followed her companions through the tunnel.

_**Well, sorry to leave you like this, and I kinda hope I'm making everything understandable and not going everywhere like a crazy person.**_

_**Peace out!**_

_**-Jkoo7**_


	12. Snake Snark Snack (Idk, I just that :P)

p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"Well, sorry for that last cliff hanger, And I'm sorry for the insanely long paragraphs I'm having you read through, but I'm trying to make them smaller, and I hope it works with your style of reading./em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"-/p  
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p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Lucky turned her head and saw who she expected, the two spirits that had been following her around for years. They looked exactly like her, except for the brown and green eyes, while Lucky had blue. They said that their names were Joanne and Agnetha, but only after she had already nicknamed them Green and Brown, and the names just sorta stuck. She tried to ask them about the immortals, but she found that the gag and wire were still on. At that moment, the wave of the sickening sedative smell finally registered and her head exploded into a headache and she felt sick./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Green and Brown noticed this and rushed over to her side. "I know, you feel sick and scared, but you need to calm down. You're low on food and you can't afford to lose the energy from the small amount of food." Green told her, being her usual resourceful self./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Don't worry about your wrists either, they haven't cut that deep and don't seem to be infected. Before they left though, Demeter gave you a necklace to make sure you don't lose circulation, so as long as we can get you to Grey, you'll be fine, he's always been good at this type of thing," Brown told her, knowing full blow well how even mentioning her husband could calm her down. But she didn't have time to think about him at the moment, she needed to get out of here before that… em style="box-sizing: border-box;"thing /emcame back./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"She took a moment to get a grip on her surroundings. She was in some sort of barred metal cage in a room with two tunnels exiting it and torches lining the wall. On the other side of the room was a metal wall and if she really listened, she could hear tiny hissing behind it. Likely the creatures' children that they mentioned about trying to protect. She quickly debated with herself about what to do with them, but there really was no other option. She would leave them alone. After all, they really weren't doing anything to her and her conscience wouldn't let her leave that giant snake angry at her for sending her children to Tartarus for no reason./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"She then took stock of her current condition. She was bound, gagged, and had a small pool of blood pooled under the chair she was tied to, no doubt coming from her cut wrists and she silently cursed herself for being so careless, but then she remembered the crushing feeling of terror of even the idea of being the Amphisbaena's 'token of assurance' and the panic that seized her when the gods agreed to it without even a second thought and concluded that she did the best that she could do under the circumstance. Her shoulder still ached from when the war god had squeezed it and she noticed that her feet were now tied with the same type of razor-sharp wire that she had begun to loathe to the chair's front legs. Her head was met with a rhythmic thumping sound that made her head what to bash itself in and the sedative was em style="box-sizing: border-box;"not /emhelping. At the moment though, all she wanted to was curl up in a ball and wait for the pain to stop./p  
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p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"She started to hyperventilate as she tried to think of something, em style="box-sizing: border-box;"anything /emthat would get her out of this mess there weren't any sharp objects she could see in the room, and Ares no doubt enchanted the wires to be unbreakable, and if she tried to wiggle free they would just get tighter and tighter until they cut her hands and feet off and-/p  
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p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""I'm back, my darlingssss..." the voice echoed in the hollow room and Lucky swore that she could em style="box-sizing: border-box;"feel /emit when the snake's eyes rested on her small, small figure. "Ah, right, the demigod." Lucky dared not to look, but she em style="box-sizing: border-box;"couldn't stop the shaking. /emBut she heard the scales slide across the floor toward her and through her closed eyes, she noticed how the Amphisbaena's shadow loomed over her. "Well, now this is just ssssad." the creature said to its other head./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Come on, it's ok, you're safe now, that brute Ares can't hurt you anymore. Now just to figure out how to get you out."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"What?/em/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"She heard the snake spit in her direction and the sizzling of the venom breaking through the cage. She opened her eyes to see the creature's spit dissolving the cage. A huge wing made its way through the opening and scooped her up like a toy. It tried to pull her out of the cage, but the snake had clearly not noticed how the chair was also tied to the cage and when it started to pull, her arms burst into pain and she let out a muffled yelp of pain. The snake obviously heard it and stopped pulling long enough to realize what happened./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Oh dear, I'm really sorry I didn't- I didn't notice. Here, let me-" Lucky saw the snake's body curl around the cage to it's back and study the arm situation. "Well, now this is just great." was that… sarcasm? "I would spray you free, but I might miss and burn your hands off." Lucky visibly shuddered at the thought. "Or, I could lick you free, but you're going to have to be very still for me, ok sweetheart?" the beast's huge eyes met hers and they softened./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""You're…. Scared of us, aren't you?" the back head asked, sounding disappointed. Lucky could only nod, not having the option of explaining why. The snake sighed as if they had expected this and looked at her again. "Ok, I know we're large and terrifying, but we're honestly just trying to help, and we're going to get you out of here, I promise, you… you just have to trust us, ok? It's probably going to be hard after…" she paused, seeming to consider something. "We're not going to hurt you if we can help it just… stay still alright?" Lucky gave her a small nod, turning away and braced herself for whatever would happen to her arms. For a moment, she was in another place, at another time, with her father asking her to trust him and stay still while he took care of whoever was knocking at the door at night./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"But with nothing else to do, she tried to loosen her aching muscles and relax, becoming as still as possible. She heard the large jaws snap open and the bars start to sizzle away. She could almost see the pink tongue creeping toward her hands and it took all of her self control not to tense up when the acid ate up at the chair's arm holding her right hand to the chair. But the wire wouldn't dissolve and stayed on her wrist like a bracelet./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Curse Ares to the deepest parts of Tartarus! The wires are immune to my venom!" the snake's back head hissed while the other head just continued on to the next hand, freeing her left hand from the arm of the chair. With both her hands-free, she went to reach back behind her head to untie her gag, but her wrists snapped together in front of her like they were magnets. She let out a cry of frustration and tried to pull them apart, but it was like they were melded together./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Ok, I'm going to burn away the legs of the chair, so you might fall over." the snake warned before quickly licking the two front legs of the chair and the wood dissolved away. The chair crumpled and Lucky rolled onto the ground, her ankles following her wrist's example and snapping together. And then there she was, on the floor, tied up like a pig, with no way to get back home without the help of someone who was not likely in the mood to help her after she stabbed him in the hip./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Oh dear, this is frustrating," she said when they discovered that the gag was also immune to the venom. "Why in the world would Ares hate you this-" she paused. "He tried to make a move on you and you didn't like it right? Poor child, I sometimes wonder how someone this heartless can ever find love. Zeus counts double for that matter by the way, what were you even doing with them anyway? I would think a demigod like yourself would be living as far away from the gods now that you've reached adulthood."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Lucky wanted to answer her questions so badly. To tell her about who she was, and what she had gone through, but she couldn't, and she was slowly beginning to feel the pinch of hunger from two days of no eating and quickly realized that she would never last until the gods eventually came back for her. She would bleed out or become dehydrated in at most two days, and she doubted that there was anyone that could get her out of this./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"The beast sighed from above her. "Alright, I think I might have a friend that can help. He's really good at undoing enchantments, but It'll take me a few hours to get him, will you be okay until then?"They gave her two small smiles (as small as a huge two-headed-chicken-snake could make) when she nodded. "Alright, look after my younglings ok? I'll be back in a while now."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Well," Joanne said when the snake had slithered away. "That was unexpected."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Unusually so for a… you know, demigod," Agnetha told her, leaning down. "So, what're you going to do now?"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Sleep," her muffled voice told them and her throat clogged up. She was em style="box-sizing: border-box;"so thirsty. /emAnd maybe in sleep things could stop hurting already./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Alright, get some rest, we'll wake you up when they come back," Joanne said, massaging circles on Lucky's back. For some strange reason, Joane could just em style="box-sizing: border-box;"do /emthat. Make physical contact with only her at certain times while being completely transparent at other times. "Don't worry about Grey either, he's fine. We'd feel it if he wasn't." And with em style="box-sizing: border-box;"that /emidea, she closed her eyes and tried to sink into the wonderful dream world./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"-/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""So…. What did Asteri want to talk about with you?" Pan asked, tossing an apple into the air and catching it. He continued to repeat the process and got a good rhythm going./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""You know about that?" Apollo asked, looking up at a cloud in the sky that kinda looked like a dragon./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Chiara laughed from her laying down position on the picnic blanket. "Apollo, em style="box-sizing: border-box;"everyone /emknows about Asteri coming up to chat with you. If you haven't noticed yet, there's not a lot going on here, so when the new guy gets the founder to have an urgent need to talk to him, we just… tend to notice." she tilted her head to look at him. "So… spill. What did she say?"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Apollo was at a loss of words. Asteri didn't necessarily demand he keeps what was about to happen a em style="box-sizing: border-box;"secret. /emBut he didn't really know if it would be good if they knew what they were about to attempt. But if things went wrong, and they didn't end up coming back…/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""She just wanted to ask me about the living world." he finally said. "It wasn't anything much, just a few questions and then I ate my breakfast."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Huh," Zavier and Toby said at the same time, causing the group to laugh./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Ok, one more question," Toby told Apollo from his own position of laying down and looking at the clouds. "Did Zavier give you the entire tour? Or did he just show you what he found interesting?"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"Apollo didn't need to look to tell that Zavier was turning a deep red color. "Heh, a bit of both actually. A brief tour of everywhere, and then long details about everything he was interested in."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Hey! I do a great job at giving tours!" Zavier protested. "And in my defense, if I went into detail about every little thing, the tour would go on for days!"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Heh, right honey, keep telling yourself that," Chiara told her husband and they laughed, but it was short-lived when the once sunny sky darkened./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Now?" Apollo asked out loud but immediately regretted it./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Apollo… what's going on?" Pan asked, sitting up./p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"The sun god looked at his nephew and sighed. "There is going to be a break in the immortal death, and when that happens, Asteri and I plan to go through and bring you this place back to the living world. I'd hoped that there would be more time before that happened, but…" he shook his head. "I need to go."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Apollo! Hold up!" Zavier stopped the god from standing up. "You can't just say something like that and just run off! We need answers!"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""I know, but there's no time, we need to act now if there's even a chance to bring justice to my father and help all of you, I have to take it." he smiled at them. "If I don't come back… would you take care of my sister? I kinda left her in a tough situation." his form started to fade away, and Zavier's hand fell through Apollo's arm. "See you around guys."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;""Apollo!" Pan cried jumping up and tried to grab onto Apollo's disappearing form, but he was already gone, and the satyr just tripped. He looked at his friends, shock, and confusion written all over his face. "What is going on?"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"-/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"…/em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"Well, the end of this part of my triquel series is almost coming to an end, but I'll try to make everything understandable for you by the end of this./em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"…/em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"Hopefully./em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;".../em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;":D/em/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"em style="box-sizing: border-box;"-Jkoo7/em/span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;" /p 


	13. Timeline

_**Ok, I'm sorry my story has been jumping all over the place, but I needed to set everything up for this moment, so, I'm going to make a timeline of the events that I've written, so we can all get caught up with each other, so this isn't going to be a full chapter alright? But I will include some details that I didn't get to add to the story that I think you'll like.**_

_**Pre-Kronos (Premordial rule)**_

In case this wasn't clear, Asteri was the first being that Caos made, and he wanted peace, so he made it so that Asteri couldn't hurt someone intentionally without paying a huge price. Together, they created the other Ancient Beings and lived on a wonderful planet called Kleponyn, except for Gaea, who was a planet herself.

You all know what happens then, she falls in love with Uranus, has the titans and others, and the sky god is a horrible dad, so Gaea asks her children to cut him up into pieces because she still couldn't bring harm without going crazy. The Titans win and are now the rulers of the galaxy, while Caos is still in charge of the rest of the universe which he's been having fun creating.

_**Titans' rule**_

Kronos became ruler and Asteri and Rhea both fought for his favor. However, when Rhea asked Asteri to back off, she didn't want to hurt her niece and stepped down. However, she stayed on Earth and was there for Zeus' fight to power. She was willing to lose her sanity for her old crush Kronos, but the titan ordered her to take care of his other family for him, and she took the children to a place she had been working on.

_**The Olympian rule**_

The Sea of White became their home for many years, with one of their dear friends being Cheesy Mc Boi, a swiss cheese-colored twutole, but they still wanted to get back at the gods for what they did and created the KER, a weapon that would cause the victim to feel all the pain they had ever brought unless they, in their hearts, truly regretted it. Meanwhile, Zeus had not forgotten about the threat Asteri's group was and went searching for them, recruiting Mnemosyne, the titan of memory for her assistance. :P

Then, in a mysterious event, Asteri was pushed to the brink of death and took the chance to create an underworld for dead immortals, and the population of the place grew, with Zavier being the first birth to take place in death. It is unclear what happened to Calypso and the other beings that were also part of Asteri's group that would have them continue to live on while Asteri is not around to protect them, but along with many others, they seemed to have completely forgotten about Asteri.

_**Grey, Lucky, and Horace**_

The three friends meet each other in an unknown event and join up to arrive at New Rome. However, Lupa, not wanting to expose the Greeks to the Romans, sends Grey and Lucky off to Camp Half-Blood. Arriving at Pittsburg, the two stop at a McDonalds to pick up some food and have an unsettling experience with a vision of Asteri in pain on the ground, and the two help her. In the same building, Percy Jackson also had a vision of a yellow turtle with black spots bleeding out on the floor.

(not mentioned in the story)

Lucky and Grey arrive at CHB, and, worrying that a clear-sighted mortal wouldn't be accepted, they pretend that he is also a demigod, but unclaimed and for some reason, no one ever knew the truth and turning 20, they leave camp, attend a college near Grey's home together, and he becomes a doctor, but he has to go on business trips a lot and soon arrives in California, where he meets Meg and her group.

_**Trials of Apollo**_

During the Burning maze, in a last-ditch effort to save his friends, Apollo stabs himself with the Arrow of Dodona. Since he is a mortal, he gets killed in the process. A god dying without being faded. Something that has never happened to a Greek or Roman god. **(That I am aware of, please don't rage if I'm wrong.-jkoo7)** After he dies, he appears at his funeral, where Zeus looked as if he couldn't care less about letting Apollo die.

Most of the other gods get angry about what happened, and Zeus' carelessness, so they make a plan to attack after Zeus left the funeral. However, some of the gods, namely Ares, Demeter, Athena, and Persephone, remind loyal to their 'king' and escaped to warn his of the danger. The group was forced to flee to Canada, meeting Lucky one the way, who was working on planting her tomatoes outside in her backyard.

She had been living in a 2-acre area with a peaceful life until the Olympians showed up and demanded that she help them. Ares tried to make a move on her, and after she stabbed him, he backed off. In exchange for help, they handed her over to the Amphisbaenna, who understood what was happening and wanted to get Lucky away from the Olympians. After leading the gods away to CA through the labyrinth, she came back to find Lucky in unbreakable bands and went to go get help.

Meanwhile, Meg, Crest, and Grey arrived at New Rome to find the Roman form of Apollo, who has been having a hard time existing with his Greek side dead, and anyone who thinks of him as Greek kills him temporarily. Using this, the group is able to gain all the immortal sacrifices they could ever need, but while the Romans were debating on which one to summon, Meg steals Apollo away after writing down the spell to summon the god, intending to bring the other Apollo back.

During this time, Apollo has been living in Asteri's immortal underworld and meeting new friends when the founder approaches him. She is sensing what is to happen and asks Apollo if he would assist her in freeing her people from death, returning them to the world of the living. He agrees, and when Meg casts the spell to bring him back, Asteri comes with him.

_**So… yeah. That's basically all that's happened. I hope you are less confused but please at least read the last 2 paragraphs at least because if you don't, you will be left out.**_

_**-Jkoo7**_


	14. It's About Time

_**Ok, I apologize in advance if this chapter is a bit fast-paced and confusing… Which it probably is. Remember, I didn't plan for a sequel, so the ending might not be as you hoped, but it's what I've got. I'm going to make this chapter very short, and the next one will probably be the last chapter in this series timeline-wise unless I decide differently, so… If I end up ending the book and you are still confused about some things, I am welcome to answer your questions**_

_**Present Day**_

_**New Rome**_

"Meg!" Grey shouted at her. "Give us Apollo, the Emperor's forces will arrive at any minute!"

"I'm getting help!" she argued through the door. "Apollo is going to destroy the emperors, kill the Python, and save the world!" She had locked herself inside Apollo's temple, which was a good decision. The doors had been reinforced to be able to hold the unstable immortal, and it would be difficult for them to break in before she had finished the spell. "Please work," she told the unconscious god. It really messed him up when they… thought of his greek side, and his mind was thoroughly smashed up, but when she brought Apollo back, he'll fix _everything_.

"Meg! Open the door!" Reyna demanded, banging on the gate. "Let Apollo's spirit be at peace! You can't just revive him like this!"

"Don't worry!" she called to them. "Ella told me how to do this!" she assured them and started to light one of the lanterns, ignoring the banging on the door. Once it was lit, she took out the pouch of spices and dumped it into the fire, sending a wave of smells on her, but she couldn't stop, not when Apollo was waiting for her to bring him back.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the scroll that she had recorded the words to the spell that Ella told her. No offense to the harpy, but Ella really should be more careful with saying everything that comes to mind.

"O protector of Rome! O… Apollo, god of…" she paused. "Archery! Hear our pleas and accept our offering! Came to our aid and destroy our offenders!" she went through the entire script and when she was done, she thought of her friend and the still body next to her let out a dying breath.

"Please work," she repeated and the flame grew a bit bigger. She turned to Apollo's form, but before she could see if anything happened, the door behind her bust open and roman rushed into the room. "I've done it! You can't do anything to stop it." for some reason, those words just felt… _wrong _coming out of her mouth as Susan and Lazu rushed forward and restrained her arms. "The Ancient One will return, and Zeus will _pay _for what he has done to her." _What am I saying?_

"Meg? What are you talking about?" Crest asked her. "Who is this 'Ancient One?'"

"It doesn't matter if no one remembers." she found herself saying. "She is coming and will bring justice to this world and rid it of all pain." she grinned in such an… un-Meg way it sent shivers down their spine. "Wouldn't that be nice?" she started to shake and her body went limp, falling to the floor.

"What is she talking about? What's wrong with her?" Susan asked Reyna, feeling the girl's forehead, but it was Grey who answered.

"The new age of the earth will begin," Grey told them with a glazed-over expression. "It is time for the Greek pantheon to leave this world. It has ruined too many lives and mortals have suffered greatly because of their mistakes."

"Woah! What's with you two?" Lazu asked, leaving Meg with Susan and walking over to Grey and snapping his fingers. "Grey? You here buddy?"

"He will be with you shortly," the medic assured him, grinning. "But my mistress is in need of my help, and I cannot allow anything to prevent her from returning, so I would strongly advise you to leave this room, what I need to do at the moment can be… destructive to anyone not from our home." he walked over to where Apollo lay and pulled out a black dagger, but Lazu grabbed his arm to stop him.

"What have you done to Meg?" he demanded.

"Fear not, I just needed her assistance in a few things. She should be fine in a few hours." Grey assured him calmly, tugging his arm away. "Please let go, I don't wish to bring you any harm, but I will be forced to if you continue to hold me back."

But Lazu didn't let go. "At least give us an explanation on what's happening!" he begged. "What did you do to Meg? Who is the Ancient One? Are you eidolon?"

"I was able to somewhat possess the girl to make her more willing to perform the ritual on Apollo, but I am no eidolon." a cannon shot was heard from the other side of the city, and Grey looked at Lazu, eyes wide. "I must act quickly. I will be able to get you your godly help, but you need to help your people."

"Why should we trust you?" Reyna growled. "Have you been planning this the entire time? Have you-"

"Oh no, you've got this all wrong." Grey shook his head. "Grey is my third life, see? I just needed to use his body for a bit until Asteri can help." he slipped his hand through Lazu's hand. "You will get your friend back eventually, but New Rome needs our help. We'll explain everything when the Emperors are stopped."

They paused for a second before Susan nodded and slung Meg over her shoulder. "Alright then, let's go kick some monster butt!" she cheered as she carried Meg out of the room, the others following her a bit hesitant before leaving Grey alone with Apollo.

The medic sighed and turned to the limp god, still holding the black dagger. "I'm sorry that you have been in so much pain, but you will be reunited with your other half soon, don't worry." he knelt down and pressed the knife in Apollo's wrist. "For Cheesy," he said before slicing the blade across his skin and drawing gold incor. The god let out a sharp yelp before opening his eyes to reveal them glowing a bright blue color. A blast of light filled the entire room, pushing Grey back into a pillar before the light eventually faded and the medic stood up and walked over and offered his hand to the trembling god.

"What… Did-did it work?" Apollo asked, taking Grey's hand and getting on his shaking legs. "Did she come back?"

Grey nodded and patted Apollo on the back. "Come, we must welcome her home."

"Something's wrong," Hazel told her battalion as they watched the ships draw closer to New Rome. "Why haven't they fired their cannons yet? They should be in range."

"Maybe they ran out of ammo?" a soldier asked from beside her. What was his name? Ben.

"Highly unlikely, why would they come into battle like that? It makes no sense." Frank told him, peering through a spyglass. "What the-" he handed the spyglass over to Hazel. "Look at the cannons, there's something happening over there."

Hazel held it up to her eye and found a crowd of monsters grouped around a cannon. "I don't see what's-" she paused, looked closer. "Is that a tortoise?" she asked, zooming in, and indeed, it was a turtle, standing on top of the cannon like a lion looking over its territory. She saw its mouth moving as if it was speaking, and the monsters were actually _listening _to it.

"I see it," Frank assured her, holding up an extra spyglass. "What's it doing?"

"No time to find out." Hazel lowered her own. "Should we open fire?"

"Not yet, somethings… I don't think we need to yet." he looked across the harbor. "It just feels… wrong for some reason. I think we should-" he was interrupted when a flash of light from behind them.

On the other side of the field, a woman formed out if the light and collapsed onto the ground. She struggled onto her knees and stared at the grass. "_Earth."_ She thought to herself, smiling, and laughed out loud.

"I'm back!" she started laughing uncontrollably and plucked some grass from out of the dirt, throwing it into the air and causing the wind to blow the strips in a small tornado. She clutched her sides and rolled onto her back and looked at the sky. "_I've missed this." _she sprawled her arms and legs out in a star shape and promised herself that nothing could ruin this moment.

_BOOM_

A cannon fired, exploding on impact as it flew into New Rome's wall.

"_Drat."_ she stood up on shaky legs and surveyed the scene. "I guess Rose wasn't able to stop the attack after all," she said to herself out loud. She snapped her fingers and a red twutole appeared beside her. "Well, what do you say girl? Should we get started?" she grinned when the daughter of Cheesy nodded eagerly. "It's about time."


End file.
